•    ••■ 

3Sp  iftarp  Roberta  Biiu&art 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT.     Illustrated. 

LONG    LIVE    THE    KING!       Illustrated. 

THE  ALTAR  OF  FREEDOM. 

TISH.     Illustrated  in  color. 

THROUGH  GLACIER  PARK.  Illustrated. 

K.    Illustrated. 

THE  STREET  OF  SEVEN  STARS. 

THE  AFTER  HOUSE.     Illustrated. 


HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
Boston  and  New  York 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 


Cbiwawa  Mountain  and  Lyman  Lake 


TENTING 
TO-NIGHT 

A  Chronicle  of  Sport 
and  Adventure  in 
Glacier  Park  and  the 
Cascade  Mountains  by 

MARY  ROBERTS  RINEHART 

WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS 


BOSTON    AND    NEW   YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

<£fce  ttitoeitfibe  $re$tf  Cambribge 

1918 


COPYRIGHT,   I917,  BY  INTERNATIONAL  MAGAZINE 
COMPANY  (COSMOPOLITAN  MAGAZINE) 

COPYRIGHT,   1918,   BY  MARY   ROBERTS  RINEHART 
ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 

Published  April  iqiS 


F737. 


CONTENTS 

I.  The  Trail i 

II.  The  Big  Adventure      .      .      .      .10 

III.  Bridge  Creek  to  Bowman  Lake    .    24 

IV.  A  Fisherman's  Paradise     ...    39 

V.  To  Kintla  Lake 50 

VI.  Running  the  Rapids  of  the  Flat- 
head   63 

VII.  The  Second  Day  on  the  Flathead    71 

VIII.  Through  the  Flathead  Canon       .    80 

IX.  The  Round-up  at  Kalispell    .      .    90 

X.  Off  for  Cascade  Pass  ....  100 

XL  Lake  Chelan  to  Lyman  Lake  .      .111 

XII.  Cloudy  Pass  and  the  Agnes  Creek 

Valley 129 

XIII.  Canon  Fishing  and  a  Telegram   .  142 

XIV.  Doing  the  Impossible  .      .      .      .150 
XV.  Doubtful  Lake 158 

XVI.  Over  Cascade  Pass       .      .      .      .167 
XVII.  Out  to  Civilization      .      .      .      .180 


M532996 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Chiwawa  Mountain  and  Lyman  Lake 

Frontispiece 

Trail  over  Gunsight  Pass,  Glacier  Na- 
tional Park 2 

Photograph  by  Fred  H.  Kiser,  Portland,  Oregon 

The  Author,  the  Middle  Boy,  and  the 
Little  Boy 6 

Looking  South  from  Pollock  Pass,  Gla- 
cier National  Park 14 

Photograph  by  Kiser  Photo  Co. 

Lake  Elizabeth  from  Ptarmigan  Pass, 
Glacier  National  Park      ....    22 

Photograph  by  A.  J.  Baker,  Kalispell,  Mont. 

A  Mountain  Lake  in  Glacier  National 
Park 36 

Photograph  by  Fred  H.  Kiser 

Getting  Ready  for  the  Day's  Fishing  at 
Camp  on  Bowman  Lake       ....    40 

Photograph  by  R.  E.  Marble,  Glacier  Park 

The  Horses  in  the  Rope  Corral  ...    44 

Photograph  by  A.  J.  Baker 

vii 


ILLUSTRATIONS 
Bear-Grass 56 

Photograph  by  Fred  H.  Kiser 

A  Glacier  Park  Lake 60 

Photograph  by  A.  J.  Baker 

Still- Water  Fishing 68 

Photograph  by  R.  E.  Marble 

Mountains  of  Glacier  National  Park 
from  the  North  Fork  of  the  Flathead 
River 74 

Photograph  by  R.  E.  Marble 

The  Beginning  of  the  Canon,  Middle 
Fork  of  the  Flathead  River    ...     82 

Photograph  by  R.  E.  Marble 
Pl-TA-MAK-AN,    OR    RUNNING    EAGLE    (Mrs. 

Rinehart),  with  Two  Other  Members 
of  the  blackfoot  tribe     ....    96 

Photograph  by  Haynes,  St.  Paul 

A  High  Mountain  Meadow    .      .      .      .100 

Photograph  by  L.  D.  Lindsley,  Lake  Chelan 

Sitting  Bull  Mountain,  Lake  Chelan   .  112 

Photograph  by  L.  D.  Lindsley 

Looking  out  of  Ice-Cave,  Lyman  Glacier  126 

Photograph  by  L.  D.  Lindsley 

Looking  Southeast  from  Cloudy  Pass  .  132 

Photograph  by  L.  D.  Lindsley 

viii 


ILLUSTRATIONS 
Stream  Fishing 144 

Photograph  by  Haynes,  St.  Paul 

Mountain  Miles:  The  Trail  up  Swift- 
current  Pass,  Glacier  National  Park  152 

Photograph  by  A.  J.  Baker 

Where  the  Rock-Slides  Start  (Glacier 
National  Park) 156 

Photograph  by  A.  J.  Baker 

Switchbacks  on  the  Trail  (Glacier  Na- 
tional Park)      . 160 

Photograph  by  Fred  H.  Riser 

Watching  the  Pack-Train  coming  down 
at  Cascade  Pass 174 

A  Field  of  Bear-Grass    .      .      .      .      .182 

Photograph  by  Fred  H.  Riser 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 


THE  TRAIL 

The  trail  is  narrow  —  often  but  the  width  of 
the  pony's  feet,  a  tiny  path  that  leads  on  and 
on.  It  is  always  ahead,  sometimes  bold  and 
wide,  as  when  it  leads  the  way  through  the  for- 
est; often  narrow,  as  when  it  hugs  the  sides  of 
the  precipice;  sometimes  even  hiding  for  a 
time  in  river  bottom  or  swamp,  or  covered  by 
the  d6bris  of  last  winter's  avalanche.  Some- 
times it  picks :  its  precarious  way  over  snow- 
fields  which  hang  at  dizzy  heights,  and  again 
it  flounders  through  mountain  streams,  where 
the  tired  horses  must  struggle  for  footing,  and 
do  not  even  dare  to  stoop  and  drink. 

It  is  dusty;  it  is  wet.  It  climbs;  it  falls;  it  is 
beautiful  and  terrible.  But  always  it  skirts 
the  coast  of  adventure.  Always  it  goes  on, 
and  always  it  calls  to  those  that  follow  it. 
Tiny  path  that  it  is,  worn  by  the  feet  of  earth's 

i 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

wanderers,  it  is  the  thread  which  has  knit  to- 
gether the  solid  places  of  the  earth.  The  path 
of  feet  in  the  wilderness  is  the  onward  march 
of  life  itself. 

City-dwellers  know  nothing  of  the  trail. 
Poor  followers  of  the  pavements,  what  to  them 
is  this  six-inch  path  of  glory?  Life  for  many  of 
them  is  but  a  thing  of  avenues  and  streets, 
fixed  and  unmysterious,  a  matter  of  numbers 
and  lights  and  post-boxes  and  people.  They 
know  whither  their  streets  lead.  There  is  no 
surprise  about  them,  no  sudden  discovery  of 
a  river  to  be  forded,  no  glimpse  of  deer  in  full 
flight  or  of  an  eagle  poised  over  a  stream.  No 
heights,  no  depths.  To  know  if  it  rains  at 
night,  they  look  down  at  shining  pavements; 
they  do  not  hold  their  faces  to  the  sky. 

Now,  I  am  a  near-city-dweller.  For  ten 
months  in  the  year,  I  am  particular  about 
mail-delivery,  and  eat  an  evening  dinner,  and 
occasionally  agitate  the  matter  of  having  a 
telephone  in  every  room  in  the  house.  I  run 
the  usual  gamut  of  dinners,  dances,  and  bridge, 
with   the  usual   country-club   setting  as  the 

2 


So 


THE  TRAIL 

spring  goes  on.  And  each  May  I  order  a  num- 
ber of  flimsy  frocks,  in  the  conviction  that  I 
have  done  all  the  hard  going  I  need  to,  and 
that  this  summer  we  shall  go  to  the  New  Eng- 
land coast.  And  then  —  about  the  first  of  June 
there  comes  a  day  when  I  find  myself  going 
over  the  fishing-tackle  unearthed  by  the  spring 
house-cleaning  and  sorting  out  of  inextricable 
confusion  the  family's  supply  of  sweaters,  old 
riding-breeches,  puttees,  rough  shoes,  trout- 
flies,  quirts,  ponchos,  spurs,  reels,  and  old  felt 
hats.  Some  of  the  hats  still  have  a  few  de- 
jected flies  fastened  to  the  ribbon,  melancholy 
hackles,  sadly  ruffled  Royal  Coachmen,  and 
here  and  there  the  determined  gayety  of  the 
Parmachene  Belle. 

I  look  at  my  worn  and  rubbed  high-laced 
boots,  at  my  riding-clothes,  snagged  with 
many  briers  and  patched  from  many  saddles, 
at  my  old  brown  velours  hat,  survival  of  many 
storms  in  many  countries.  It  has  been  rained 
on  in  Flanders,  slept  on  in  France,  and  has 
carried  many  a  refreshing  draft  to  my  lips  in 
my  "ain  countree.,, 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

I  put  my  fishing-rod  together  and  give  it  a 
tentative  flick  across  the  bed,  and  —  I  am 
lost. 

The  family  professes  surprise,  but  it  is 
acquiescent.  And  that  night,  or  the  next  day, 
we  wire  that  we  will  not  take  the  house  in 
Maine,  and  I  discover  that  the  family  has 
never  expected  to  go  to  Maine,  but  has  been 
buying  more  trout-flies  right  along. 

As  a  family,  we  are  always  buying  trout- 
flies.  We  buy  a  great  many.  I  do  not  know 
what  becomes  of  them.  To  those  whose  lives 
are  limited  to  the  unexciting  sport  of  buying 
golf-balls,  which  have  endless  names  but  no 
variety,  I  will  explain  that  the  trout  do  not 
eat  the  flies,  but  merely  attempt  to.  So  that 
one  of  the  eternal  mysteries  is  how  our  flies 
disappear.  I  have  seen  a  junior  Rinehart  start 
out  with  a  boat,  a  rod,  six  large  cakes  of  choco- 
late, and  four  dollars'  worth  of  flies,  and  re- 
turn a  few  hours  later  with  one  fish,  one  Pro- 
fessor, one  Doctor,  and  one  Black  Moth  minus 
the  hook.  And  the  boat  had  not  upset. 

June,  after  the  decision,  becomes  a  time  of 
4 


THE  TRAIL 

subdued  excitement.  For  fear  we  shall  forget 
to  pack  them,  things  are  set  out  early.  String- 
ers hang  from  chandeliers,  quirts  from  door- 
knobs. Shoe-polish  and  disgorgers  and  adhe- 
sive plaster  litter  the  dressing-tables.  Rows 
of  boots  line  the  walls.  And,  in  the  evenings, 
those  of  us  who  are  at  home  pore  over  maps 
and  lists. 

This  last  year,  our  plans  were  ambitious. 
They  took  in  two  complete  expeditions,  each 
with  our  own  pack-outfit.  The  first  was  to 
take  ourselves,  some  eight  packers,  guides,  and 
cooks,  and  enough  horses  to  carry  our  outfit  — 
thirty-one  in  all  —  through  the  western  and 
practically  unknown  side  of  Glacier  National 
Park,  in  northwestern  Montana,  to  the  Cana- 
dian border.  If  we  survived  that,  we  intended 
to  go  by  rail  to  the  Chelan  country  in  northern 
Washington  and  there,  again  with  a  pack- 
train,  cross  the  Cascades  over  totally  unknown 
country  to  Puget  Sound. 

We  did  both,  to  the  eternal  credit  of  our 
guides  and  horses. 

The  family,  luckily  for  those  of  us  who  have 
5 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

the  Wanderlust,  is  four  fifths  masculine.  I  am 
the  odd  fifth  —  unlike  the  story  of  King 
George  the  Fifth  and  Queen  Mary  the  other 
four  fifths.  It  consists  of  the  head  of  the  fam- 
ily, to  be  known  hereafter  as  the  Head,  the 
Big  Boy,  the  Middle  Boy,  the  Little  Boy,  and 
myself.  As  the  Big  Boy  is  very,  very  big,  and 
the  Little  Boy  is  not  really  very  little,  be- 
ing on  the  verge  of  long  trousers,  we  make 
a  comfortable  traveling  unit.  And,  because 
we  were  leaving  the  beaten  path  and  going 
a-gypsying,  with  a  new  camp  each  night  no 
one  knew  exactly  where,  the  party  gradually 
augmented. 

First,  we  added  an  optimist  named  Bob. 
Then  we  added  a  "movie "-man,  called  Joe  for 
short  and  because  it  was  his  name,  and  a 
"still"  photographer,  who  was  literally  still 
most  of  the  time.  Some  of  these  pictures  are 
his.  He  did  some  beautiful  work,  but  he  really 
needed  a  mouth  only  to  eat  with. 

(The  "movie "-man  is  unpopular  with  the 
junior  members  of  the  family  just  now,  be- 
cause he  hid  his  camera  in  the  bushes  and 

6 


The  Author,  the  Middle  Boy,  and  the  Little  Boy 


THE  TRAIL 

took  the  Little  Boy  in  a  state  of  goose  flesh 
on  the  bank  of  Bowman  Lake.) 

But,  of  course,  we  have  not  got  to  Bowman 
Lake  yet. 

During  the  year  before,  I  had  ridden  over 
the  better-known  trails  of  Glacier  Park  with 
Howard  Eaton's  riding  party,  and  when  I 
had  crossed  the  Gunsight  Pass,  we  had  looked 
north  and  west  to  a  great  country  of  moun- 
tains capped  with  snow,  with  dense  forests  on 
the  lower  slopes  and  in  the  valleys. 

"What  is  it?"  I  had  asked  the  ranger  who 
had  accompanied  us  across  the  pass. 

"It  is  the  west  side  of  Glacier  Park,"  he 
explained.  "  It  is  not  yet  opened  up  for  tourist 
travel.  Once  or  twice  in  a  year,  a  camping 
party  goes  up  through  this  part  of  the  park. 
That  is  all." 

"What  is  it  like?"  I  asked. 

"Wonderful!" 

So,  sitting  there  on  my  horse,  I  made  up  my 
mind  that  sometime  i"  would  go  up  the  west 
side  of  Glacier  Park  to  the  Canadian  border. 

Roughly  speaking,  there  are  at  least  six 
7 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

hundred  square  miles  of  Glacier  Park  on  the 
west  side  that  are  easily  accessible,  but  that 
are  practically  unknown.  Probably  the  area 
is  more  nearly  a  thousand  square  miles.  And 
this  does  not  include  the  fastnesses  of  the 
range  itself.  It  comprehends  only  the  slopes 
on  the  west  side  to  the  border-line  of  the  Flat- 
head River. 

The  reason  for  the  isolation  of  the  west  side 
of  Glacier  Park  is  easily  understood.  The 
park  is  divided  into  two  halves  by  the  Rocky 
Mountain  range,  which  traverses  it  from 
northwest  to  southeast.  Over  it  there  is  no 
single  wagon-road  of  any  sort  between  the 
Canadian  border  and  Helena,  perhaps  two 
hundred  and  fifty  miles.  A  railroad  crosses  at 
the  Marias  Pass.  But  from  that  to  the  Cana- 
dian line,  one  hundred  miles,  travel  from  the 
east  is  cut  off  over  the  range,  except  by  trail. 

To  reach  the  west  side  of  Glacier  Park  at 
the  present  time,  the  tourist,  having  seen  the 
wonders  of  the  east  side,  must  return  to  Gla- 
cier Park  Station,  take  a  train  over  the  Marias 
Pass,  and  get  out  at  Belton.    Even  then,  he 

8 


THE  TRAIL  / 

can  only  go  by  boat  up  to  Lewis's  Hotel  on 
Lake  McDonald,  a  trifling  distance.  There  are 
no  hotels  beyond  Lewis's,  and  no  roads. 

Naturally,  this  tremendous  area  is  unknown 
and  un visited. 

It  is  being  planned,  however,  by  the  new 
Department  of  National  Parks  to  build  a  road 
this  coming  year  along  Lake  McDonald.  Even- 
tually, this  much-needed  highway  will  con- 
nect with  the  Canadian  roads,  and  thus  indi- 
rectly with  Banff  and  Lake  Louise.  The  open- 
ing-up  of  the  west  side  of  Glacier  Park  will 
make  it  perhaps  the  most  unique  of  all  our 
parks,  as  it  is  undoubtedly  the  most  magnifi- 
cent. The  grandeur  of  the  east  side  will  be 
tempered  by  the  more  smiling  and  equally 
lovely  western  slopes.  And  when,  between  the 
east  and  the  west  sides,  there  is  constructed  the 
great  motor-highway  which  will  lead  across 
the  range,  we  shall  have,  perhaps,  the  most 
scenic  motor-road  in  the  United  States  — 
until,  in  the  fullness  of  time,  we  build  another 
road  across  Cascade  Pass  in  Washington. 


II 

THE  BIG  ADVENTURE 

Came  at  last  the  day  to  start  west.  In  spite 
of  warnings,  we  found  that  our  irreducible 
minimum  of  luggage  filled  five  wardrobe- 
trunks.  In  vain  we  went  over  our  lists  and  cast 
out  such  bulky  things  as  extra  handkerchiefs 
and  silk  socks  and  fancy  neckties  and  toilet- 
silver.  We  started  with  all  five.  It  was  boiling 
hot;  the  sun  beat  in  at  the  windows  of  the 
transcontinental  train  and  stifled  us.  Over  the 
prairies,  dust  blew  in  great  clouds,  covering 
the  window-sills  with  white.  The  Big  Boy  and 
the  Middle  Boy  and  the  Little  Boy  referred 
scornfully  to  the  flannels  and  sweaters  on 
which  I  had  been  so  insistent.  The  Head  slept 
across  the  continent.  The  Little  Boy  counted 
prairie-dogs. 

Then,  almost  suddenly,  we  were  in  the 
mountains  —  for  the  Rockies  seem  to  rise  out 
of  a  great  plain.  The  air  was  stimulating.  There 
had  been  a  great  deal  of  snow  last  winter,  and 

10 


THE  BIG  ADVENTURE 

the  wind  from  the  ice-capped  peaks  overhead 
blew  down  and  chilled  us.  We  threw  back  our 
heads  and  breathed. 

Before  going  to  Belton  for  our  trip  with  the 
pack-outfit,  we  rode  again  for  two  weeks  with 
the  Howard  Eaton  party  through  the  east 
side  of  the  park,  crossing  again  those  great 
passes,  for  each  one  of  which,  like  the  Indians, 
the  traveler  counts  a  coup  —  Mount  Morgan, 
a  mile  high  and  the  width  of  an  army-mule  on 
top;  old  Piegan,  under  the  shadow  of  the  Gar- 
den Wall;  Mount  Henry,  where  the  wind  blows 
always  a  steady  gale.  We  had  scaled  Dawson 
with  the  aid  of  ropes,  since  snowslides  covered 
the  trail,  and  crossed  the  Cut  Bank  in  a  hail- 
storm. Like  the  noble  Duke  of  York,  Howard 
Eaton  had  led  us  "  up  a  hill  one  day  and  led  us 
down  again."  Only,  he  did  it  every  day. 

Once,  in  my  notebook,  I  wrote  on  top  of  a 
mountain  my  definition  of  a  mountain  pass.  I 
have  used  it  before,  but  because  it  was  written 
with  shaking  fingers  and  was  torn  from  my 
very  soul,  I  cannot  better  it.  This  is  what  I 
wrote:  — 

ii 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

A  pass  is  a  blood-curdling  spot  up  which  one's 
horse  climbs  like  a  goat  and  down  the  other  side 
of  which  it  slides  as  you  lead  it,  trampling  ever 
and  anon  on  a  tender  part  of  your  foot.  A  pass 
is  the  highest  place  between  two  peaks.  A  pass  is 
not  an  opening,  but  a  barrier  which  you  climb 
with  chills  and  descend  with  prayer.  A  pass  is  a 
thing  which  you^  try  to  forget  at  the  time,  and 
which  you  boast  about  when  you  get  back  home. 

At  last  came  the  day  when  we  crossed  the 
Gunsight  Pass  and,  under  Sperry  Glacier, 
looked  down  and  across  to  the  north  and  west. 
It  was  sunset  and  cold.  The  day  had  been  a 
long  and  trying  one.  We  had  ridden  across  an 
ice-field  which  sloped  gently  off  —  into  China,  I 
dare  say.  I  did  not  look  over.  Our  horses  were 
weary,  and  we  were  saddle-sore  and  hungry. 

Pete,  our  big  guide,  whose  name  is  really 
not  Pete  at  all,  waved  an  airy  hand  toward 
the  massed  peaks  beyond  —  the  land  of  our 
dreams.  ' 

"Well,"  he  said,  "there  it  is!" 

And  there  it  was. 

Getting  a  pack-outfit  ready  for  a  long  trip 
into  the  wilderness  is  a  serious  matter.    We 

12 


THE  BIG  ADVENTURE 

were  taking  thirty-one  horses,  guides,  packers, 
and  a  cook.  But  we  were  doing  more  than  that 
—  we  were  taking  two  boats!  This  was  Bob's 
idea.  Any  highly  original  idea,  such  as  taking 
boats  where  not  even  tourists  had  gone  before, 
or  putting  eggs  on  a  bucking  horse,  or  carry- 
ing grapefruit  for  breakfast  into  the  wilder- 
ness, was  Bob's  idea. 

"  You  see,  I  figure  it  out  like  this,"  he  said, 
when,  on  our  arrival  at  Belton,  we  found  the 
boats  among  our  equipment:  "If  we  can  get 
those  boats  up  to  the  Canadian  line  and  come 
down  the  Flathead  rapids  all  the  way,  it  will 
only  take  about  four  days  on  the  river.  It's  a 
stunt  that's  never  been  pulled  off." 

"Do  you  mean,"  I  said,  "that  we  are  going 
to  run  four  days  of  rapids  that  have  never  been 
run?" 

"That's  it." 

I  looked  around.  There,  in  a  group,  were  the 
Head  and  the  Big  Boy  and  the  Middle  Boy  and 
the  Little  Boy.  And  a  fortune-teller  at  Atlantic 
City  had  told  me  to  beware  of  water! 

"At  the  worst  places,"  the  Optimist  con- 
13 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

tinued,  ''we  can  send  Joe  ahead  in  one  boat 
with  the  'movie'  outfit,  and  get  you  as  you 
come  along.' ' 

"I  dare  say,"  I  observed,  with  some  bitter- 
ness. "  Of  course  we  may  upset.  But  if  we  do, 
I  '11  try  to  go  down  for  the  third  time  in  front 
of  the  camera.' ' 

But  even  then  the  boats  were  being  hoisted 
into  a  wagon-bed  filled  with  hay.  And  I  knew 
that  I  was  going  to  run  four  days  of  rapids. 
It  was  written. 

It  was  a  bright  morning.  In  a  corral,  the 
horses  were  waiting  to  be  packed.  Rolls  of 
blankets,  crates  of  food,  and  camping-utensils 
lay  everywhere.  The  Big  Boy  marshaled  the 
fishing-tackle.  Bill,  the  cook,  was  searching 
the  town  for  the  top  of  an  old  stove  to  bake 
on.  We  had  provided  two  reflector  ovens,  but 
he  regarded  them  with  suspicion.  They  would, 
he  suspected,  not  do  justice  to  his  specialty, 
the  corn-meal  saddle-bag,  a  sort  of  sublimated 
hot  cake. 

I  strolled  to  the  corral  and  cast  a  horse- 
woman's eye  on  my  mount. 

14 


THE  BIG  ADVENTURE 

"He  looks  like  a  very  nice  horse,"  I  said. 
"He's  quite  handsome." 

Pete  tightened  up  the  cinch. 

"Yes,"  he  observed;  "he's  all  right.  He's 
a  pretty  good  mare." 

The  Head  was  wandering  around  with  lists 
in  his  hand.  His  conversation  ran  something 
like  this :  — 

"Pocket-flashes,  chocolate,  jam,  medicine- 
case,  reels,  landing-nets,  cigarettes,  tooth-pow- 
der, slickers,  matches." 

He  was  always  accumulating  matches.  One 
moment,  a  box  of  matches  would  be  in  plain 
sight  and  the  next  it  had  disappeared.  He  be- 
came a  sort  of  match-magazine,  so  that  if  any- 
body had  struck  him  violently,  in  almost  any 
spot,  he  would  have  exploded. 

Hours  went  by.  The  sun  was  getting  high 
and  hot.  The  crowd  which  had  been  watching 
gradually  disappeared  about  its  business.  The 
two  boats  —  big,  sturdy  river-boats  they  were 
—  had  rumbled  along  toward  the  wilderness, 
one  on  top  of  the  other,  with  George  Locke  and 
Mike  Shannon  as  pilots,  watching  for  break- 

15 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

ers  ahead.  In  the  corral,  our  supplies  were 
being  packed  on  the  horses,  Bill  Shea  and  Pete, 
Tom  Sullivan  and  Tom  Farmer  and  their  as- 
sistants working  against  time.  In  crates  were 
our  cooking-utensils,  ham,  bacon,  canned  sal- 
mon, jam,  flour,  corn-meal,  eggs,  baking-pow- 
der, flies,  rods,  and  reels,  reflector  ovens,  sun- 
burn lotion,  coffee,  cocoa,  and  so  on.  Cocoa  is 
the  cowboy's  friend.  Innumerable  blankets, 
"  tarp"  beds,  and  war-sacks  lay  rolled  ready  for 
the  pack-saddles.  The  cook  was  declaiming 
loudly  that  some  one  had  opened  his  pack  and 
taken  out  his  cleaver. 

For  a  pack-outfit,  the  west  side  of  Glacier 
Park  is  ideal.  The  east  side  is  much  the  best 
so  far  for  those  who  wish  to  make  short  trips 
along  the  trails  into  the  mountains,  although 
as  yet  only  a  small  part,  comparatively,  of  the 
eastern  wonderland  is  open.  There,  one  may 
spend  a  day,  or  several  days,  in  the  midst  of 
the  wildest  possible  country  and  yet  return  at 
night  to  excellent  hotels. 

On  the  west  side,  however,  a  pack-outfit  is 
necessary.  There  is  but  one  hotel,  Lewis's,  on 

16 


THE  BIG  ADVENTURE 

Lake  McDonald.  To  get  to  the  Canadian  line, 
there  must  be  camping  facilities  for  at  least 
eight  days  if  there  are  no  stop-overs.  And  not 
to  stop  over  is  to  lose  the  joy  of  the  trip.  It  is 
an  ideal  two  to  three  weeks'  jaunt  with  a  pack- 
train.  A  woman  who  can  sit  a  horse  —  and 
every  one  can  ride  in  a  Western  saddle  —  a 
woman  can  make  the  land  trip  not  only  with 
comfort  but  with  joy.  That  is,  a  woman  who 
likes  the  outdoors. 

What  did  we  wear,  that  bright  morning 
when,  all  ready  at  last,  the  cook  on  the  chuck- 
wagon,  the  boats  ambling  ahead,  with  Bill  Hos- 
sick,  the  teamster,  driving  the  long  line  of 
heavily  packed  horses  and  our  own  saddlers 
lined  up  for  the  adventure,  we  moved  out  on  to 
the  trail? 

Well,  the  men  wore  khaki  riding-trousers 
and  flannel  shirts,  broad-brimmed  felt  hats, 
army  socks  drawn  up  over  the  cuff  of  the 
breeches,  and  pack-shoes.  A  pack-shoe  is  one 
in  which  the  leather  of  the  upper  part  makes 
the  sole  also,  without  a  seam.  On  to  this 
soft  sole  is  sewed  a  heavy  leather  one.  The 

17 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

pack-shoe  has  a  fastened  tongue  and  is  water- 
proof. 

And  I?  I  had  not  counted  on  the  "movie"- 
man,  and  I  was  dressed  for  comfort  in  the 
woods.  I  had  buckskin  riding-breeches  and 
high  boots,  and  over  my  thin  riding-shirt  I 
wore  a  cloth  coat.  I  had  packed  in  my  war- 
bag  a  divided  skirt  also,  and  a  linen  suit,  for 
hot  days,  of  breeches  and  coat.  But  of  this  lat- 
ter the  least  said  the  better.  It  betrayed  me 
and,  in  portions,  deserted  me. 

All  of  us  carried  tin  drinking-cups,  which 
vied  with  the  bells  on  the  pack-animals  for 
jingle.  Most  of  us  had  sweaters  or  leather 
wind-jammers.  The  guides  wore  "chaps"  of 
many  colors,  boots  with  high  heels,  which  put 
our  practical  packs  in  the  shade,  and  gay  silk 
handkerchiefs. 

Joe  was  to  be  a  detachable  unit.  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  he  became  detached  rather  early  in 
the  game,  having  been  accidentally  given  a 
bucker.  It  was  on  the  second  day,  I  think, 
that  his  horse  buried  his  head  between  his 
fore  legs,  and  dramatized  one  of  the  best  bits 

18 


THE  BIG  ADVENTURE 

of  the  trip  when  Joe  was  totally  unable  to 
photograph  it. 

He  had  his  own  guide  and  extra  horse  for  the 
camera.  It  had  been  our  expectation  that,  at 
the  most  hazardous  parts  of  the  journey,  he 
would  perch  on  some  crag  and  show  us  cour- 
ageously risking  our  necks  to  have  a  good  time. 
But  on  the  really  bad  places  he  had  his  own  life 
to  save,  and  he  never  fully  trusted  Maud,  I 
think,  after  the  first  day.  Maud  was  his  horse. 

Besides,  when  he  did  climb  to  some  aerie,  and 
photographed  me,  for  instance,  in  a  sort  of 
Napoleon-crossing-the-Alps  attitude,  sitting 
my  horse  on  the  brink  of  eternity  and  being 
reassured  from  safety  by  the  Optimist  —  out- 
side the  picture,  of  course  —  the  developed 
film  flattened  out  the  landscape.  So  that,  al- 
though I  was  on  the  edge  of  a  canon  a  mile  deep, 
I  might  as  well  have  been  posing  on  the  bank  of 
the  Ohio  River. 

On  the  east  side  of  the  Park  I  had  ridden 
Highball.  It  is  not  particularly  significant 
that  I  started  the  summer  on  Highball  and 
ended  it  on  Budweiser.    Now  I  had  Angel,  a 

19 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

huge  white  mare  with  a  pink  nose,  a  loving  dis- 
position, and  a  gait  that  kept  me  swallowing 
my  tongue  for  fear  I  would  bite  the  end  off  it. 
The  Little  Boy  had  Prince,  a  small  pony  which 
ran  exactly  like  an  Airedale  dog,  and  in  every 
canter  beat  out  the  entire  string.   The  Head 

had  H ,  and  considered  him  well  indicated. 

One  bronco  was  called  "  Bronchitis.' '  The  top 
horse  of  the  string  was  Bill  Shea's  Dynamite, 
according  to  Bill  Shea.  There  were  Dusty, 
Shorty,  Sally  Goodwin,  Buffalo  Tom,  Chalk- 
Eye,  Comet,  and  Swapping  Tater  —  Swap- 
ping Tater  being  a  pacer  who,  when  he  hit  the 
ground,  swapped  feet.    Bob  had  Sister  Sarah. 

At  last,  everything  was  ready.  The  pack- 
train  got  slowly  under  way.  We  leaped  into 
our  saddles  —  " leaped* '  being  a  figurative 
term  which  grew  more  and  more  figurative  as 
time  went  on  and  we  grew  saddle-weary  and 
stiff  —  and,  passing  the  pack-train  on  a  can- 
ter, led  off  for  the  wilderness. 

All  that  first  day  we  rode,  now  in  the  sun, 
now  in  deep  forest.  Luncheon-time  came,  but 
the  pack-train  was  far  behind.  We  waited,  but 

20 


THE  BIG  ADVENTURE 

we  could  not  hear  so  much  as  the  tinkle  of  its 
bells.  So  we  munched  cakes  of  chocolate  from 
the  pockets  of  our  riding-coats  and  went  grimly 
on. 

The  wagon  with  the  boats  had  made  good 
time.  It  was  several  miles  along  the  wagon- 
trail  before  we  caught  up  with  it.  It  had  found 
a  quiet  harbor  beside  the  road,  and  the  boat- 
men were  demanding  food.  We  tossed  them 
what  was  left  of  the  chocolate  and  went  on. 

The  presence  of  a  wagon- trail  in  that  empty 
land,  unvisited  and  unknown,  requires  ex- 
planation. In  the  first  place,  it  was  not  really 
a  road.  It  was  a  trail,  and  in  places  barely 
that.  But,  sixteen  years  before,  a  road  had 
been  cleared  through  the  forest  by  some  people 
who  believed  there  was  oil  near  the  Canadian 
line.  They  cut  down  trees  and  built  corduroy 
bridges.  But  in  sixteen  years  it  has  not  been 
used.  No  wheels  have  worn  it  smooth.  It  takes 
its  leisurely  way,  now  through  wilderness,  now 
through  burnt  country  where  the  trees  stand 
stark  and  dead,  now  through  prairie  or  creek- 
bottom,  now  up,  now  down,  always  with  the 

21 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

range  rising  abruptly  to  the  east,  and  with  the 
Flathead  River  somewhere  to  the  west. 

It  will  not  take  much  expenditure  to  make 
that  old  wagon-trail  into  a  good  road.  It  has 
its  faults.  It  goes  down  steep  slopes  —  on  the 
second  day  out,  the  chuck-wagon  got  away, 
and,  fetching  up  at  the  bottom,  threw  out  Bill 
the  cook  and  nearly  broke  his  neck.  It  climbs 
like  a  cat  after  a  young  robin.  It  is  rocky  or 
muddy  or  both.   But  it  is,  potentially,  a  road. 

The  Rocky  Mountains  run  northwest  and 
southeast,  and  in  numerous  basins,  fed  by 
melting  glaciers  and  snowfields,  are  deep  and 
quiet  lakes.  These  lakes,  on  the  west  side,  dis- 
charge their  overflow  through  roaring  and  pre- 
cipitous streams  to  the  Flathead,  which  flows 
south  and  east.  While  our  general  direction 
was  north,  it  was  our  intention  to  turn  off  east 
and  camp  at  the  different  lakes,  coming  back 
again  to  the  wagon-trail  to  resume  our  journey. 

Therefore,  it  became  necessary,  day  after 
day,  to  take  our  boats  off  the  wagon-road  and 
haul  them  along  foot-trails  none  too  good. 
The  log  of  the  two  boats  is  in  itself  a  thrilling 

22 


THE  BIG  ADVENTURE 

story.  There  were  days  and  days  when  the 
wagon  was  mired,  when  it  stuck  in  the  fords  of 
streams  or  in  soft  places  on  the  trail.  It  was  a 
land  flotilla  by  day,  and,  with  its  straw,  a 
couch  at  night.  And  there  came,  toward  the 
end  of  the  journey,  that  one  nerve-racking  day 
when,  over  a  sixty-foot  cliff  down  a  foot-trail, 
it  was  necessary  to  rope  wagon,  boats,  and  all, 
to  get  the  boats  into  the  Flathead  River. 

But  all  this  was  before  us  then.  We  only 
knew  it  was  summer,  that  the  days  were  warm 
and  the  nights  cool,  that  the  streams  were  full 
of  trout,  that  such  things  as  telegraphs  and 
telephones  were  falling  far  in  our  rear,  and 
that  before  us  was  the  Big  Adventure. 


Ill 

BRIDGE  CREEK  TO  BOWMAN  LAKE 

The  first  night  we  camped  at  Bridge  Creek  on 
a  river-flat.  Beside  us,  the  creek  rolled  and 
foamed.  The  horses,  in  their  rope  corral,  lay 
down  and  rolled  in  sheer  ecstasy  when  their 
heavy  packs  were  removed.  The  cook  set  up 
his  sheet-iron  stove  beside  the  creek,  built  a 
wood  fire,  lifted  the  stove  over  it,  fried  meat, 
boiled  potatoes,  heated  beans,  and  made  coffee 
while  the  tents  were  going  up.  From  a  thicket 
near  by  came  the  thud  of  an  axe  as  branches 
were  cut  for  bough  beds. 

I  have  slept  on  all  kinds  of  bough  beds.  They 
may  be  divided  into  three  classes.  There  is  the 
one  which  is  high  in  the  middle  and  slopes  down 
at  the  side — there  is  nothing  so  slippery  as  pine- 
needles —  so  that  by  morning  you  are  quite 
likely  to  be  not  only  off  the  bed  but  out  of  the 
tent.  And  there  is  the  bough  bed  made  by  the 
guide  when  he  is  in  a  great  hurry,  which  con- 

24 


BRIDGE  CREEK  TO  BOWMAN  LAKE 

sists  of  large  branches  and  not  very  many 
needles.  So  that  in  the  morning,  on  rising,  one 
is  as  furrowed  as  a  waffle  off  the  iron.  And  there 
is  the  third  kind,  which  is  the  real  bough  bed, 
but  which  cannot  be  tossed  off  in  a  moment, 
like  a  poem,  but  must  be  the  result  of  calcula- 
tion, time,  and  much  labor.  It  is  to  this  bough 
bed  that  I  shall  some  day  indite  an  ode. 

This  is  the  way  you  go  about  it:  First,  you 
take  a  large  and  healthy  woodsman  with  an 
axe,  who  cuts  down  a  tree  —  a  substantial 
tree.  Because  this  is  the  frame  of  your  bed. 
But  on  no  account  do  this  yourself.  One  of  the 
joys  of  a  bough  bed  is  seeing  somebody  else 
build  it. 

The  tree  is  an  essential.  It  is  cut  into  six- 
foot  lengths  —  unless  one  is  more  than  six  feet 
long.  If  the  bed  is  intended  for  one,  two  side 
pieces  with  one  at  the  head  and  one  at  the  foot 
are  enough,  laid  flat  on  a  level  place,  making 
a  sort  of  boxed-in  rectangle.  If  the  bed  is  in- 
tended for  two,  another  log  down  the  center 
divides  it  into  two  bunks  and  prevents  quar- 
reling. 

25 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

Now  begins  the  real  work  of  constructing  the 
bough  bed.  If  one  is  a  good  manager,  while  the 
frame  is  being  made,  the  younger  members  of 
the  family  have  been  performing  the  loving 
task  of  getting  the  branches  together.  When  a 
sufficient  number  of  small  branches  has  been 
accumulated,  this  number  varying  from  one 
ton  to  three,  judging  by  size  and  labor,  the 
bough  bed  is  built  by  the  simple  expedient  of 
sticking  the  branches  into  the  enclosed  space 
like  flowers  into  a  vase.  They  must  be  packed 
very  closely,  stem  down.  This  is  a  slow  and 
not  particularly  agreeable  task  for  one's  loving 
family  and  friends,  owing  to  the  tendency  of 
pine-  and  balsam-needles  to  jag.  Indeed,  I 
have  known  it  to  happen  that,  after  a  try  or 
two,  some  one  in  the  outfit  is  delegated  to  the 
task  of  official  bed-maker,  and  a  slight  coldness 
is  noticeable  when  one  refers  to  dusk  and  bed- 
time. 

Over  these  soft  and  feathery  plumes  of  bal- 
sam—  soft  and  feathery  only  through  six 
blankets  —  is  laid  the  bedding,  and  on  this 
couch  the  wearied  and  saddle-sore  tourist  may 

26 


BRIDGE  CREEK  TO  BOWMAN  LAKE 

sleep  as  comfortably  as  in  his  grandaunt's 
featherbed. 

But,  dear  traveler,  it  is  much  simpler  to  take 
an  air-mattress  and  a  foot-pump.  True,  even 
this  has  its  disadvantages.  It  is  not  safe  to 
stick  pins  into  it  while  disrobing  at  night. 
Occasionally,  a  faulty  valve  lets  go,  and  the 
sleeper  dreams  he  is  falling  from  the  Wool- 
worth  Tower.  But  lacking  a  sturdy  woodsman 
and  a  loving  family  to  collect  branches,  I  ad- 
vise the  air-bed. 

Fishing  at  Bridge  Creek,  that  first  evening, 
was  poor.  We  caught  dozens  of  small  trout. 
But  it  would  have  taken  hundreds  to  satisfy 
us  after  our  lunchless  day,  and  there  were  other 
reasons. 

One  casts  for  trout.  There  is  no  sitting  on 
a  mossy  stone  and  watching  a  worm  guilefully 
struggling  to  attract  a  fish  to  the  hooks.  No; 
one  casts. 

Now,  I  have  learned  to  cast  fairly  well.  On 
the  lawn  at  home,  or  in  the  middle  of  a  ten- 
acre  lot,  cleared,  or  the  center  of  a  lake,  I  can 
put  out  quite  a  lot  of  line.    In  one  cast  out  of 

27 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

three,  I  can  drop  a  fly  so  that  it  appears  to 
be  committing  suicide  —  which  is  the  correct 
way.  But  in  a  thicket  I  am  lost.  I  hold  the 
woman's  record  for  getting  the  hook  in  my 
hair  or  the  lobe  of  the  Little  Boy's  ear.  I  have 
hung  fish  high  in  trees  more  times  than  phono- 
graphs have  hanged  Danny  Deever.  I  can, 
under  such  circumstances  (i.e.,  the  thicket), 
leave  camp  with  a  rod,  four  six-foot  leaders,  an 
expensive  English  line,  and  a  smile,  and  return 
an  hour  later  with  a  six-inch  trout,  a  bandaged 
hand,  a  hundred  and  eighty  mosquito  bites,  no 
leaders,  and  no  smile. 

So  we  fished  little  that  first  evening,  and, 
on  the  discovery  that  candles  had  been  left 
out  of  the  cook's  outfit,  we  retired  early  to  our 
bough  beds,  which  were,  as  it  happened  that 
night,  of  class  A. 

There  was  a  deer-lick  on  our  camp-ground 
there  at  Bridge  Creek,  and  during  the  night 
deer  came  down  and  strayed  through  the  camp. 
One  of  the  guides  saw  a  black  bear  also.  We 
saw  nothing.  Some  day  I  shall  write  an  article 
called:  "Wild  Animals  I  Have  Missed." 

28 


BRIDGE  CREEK  TO  BOWMAN  LAKE 

We  had  made  fourteen  miles  the  first  day, 
with  a  late  start.  It  was  not  bad,  but  the  next 
day  we  determined  to  do  better.  At  five  o'clock 
we  were  up,  and  at  five-thirty  tents  were  down 
and  breakfast  under  way.  We  had  had  a  visi- 
tor the  night  before  —  that  curious  anomaly,  a 
young  hermit.  He  had  been  a  very  well-known 
pugilist  in  the  light-weight  class  and,  his  health 
failing,  he  had  sought  the  wilderness.  There  he 
had  lived  for  seven  years  alone. 

We  asked  him  if  he  never  cared  to  see  people. 
But  he  replied  that  trees  were  all  the  company 
he  wanted.  Deer  came  and  browsed  around 
his  tiny  shack  there  in  the  woods.  All  the 
trout  he  could  use  played  in  his  front  garden. 
He  had  a  dog  and  a  horse,  and  he  wanted 
nothing  else.  He  came  to  see  us  off  the  next 
morning,  and  I  think  we  amused  him.  We 
seemed  to  need  so  much.  He  stared  at  our 
thirty-one  horses,  sixteen  of  them  packed  with 
things  he  had  learned  to  live  without.  But  I 
think  he  rather  hated  to  see  us  go.  We  had 
brought  a  little  excitement  into  his  quiet  life. 

The  first  bough  bed  had  been  a  failure.  For 
29 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

—  note  you  —  I  had  not  then  learned  of  the 
bough  bed  de  luxe.  This  information,  which 
I  have  given  you  so  freely,  dear  reader,  what 
has  it  not  cost  me  in  sleepless  nights  and  fam- 
ily coldness  and  aching  muscles! 

So  I  find  this  note  in  my  daily  journal,  writ- 
ten that  day  on  horseback,  and  therefore  not 
very  legible :  — 

Mem:  After  this,  must  lie  over  the  camp- 
ground until  I  find  a  place  that  fits  me  to  sleep 
on.  Then  have  the  tent  erected  over  it. 

There  was  a  little  dissension  in  the  party 
that  morning,  Joe  having  wakened  in  the  night 
while  being  violently  shoved  out  under  the 
edge  of  his  tent  by  his  companion,  who  was 
a  restless  sleeper.  But  ill- temper  cannot  live 
long  in  the  open.  We  settled  to  the  swinging 
walk  of  the  trail.  In  the  mountain  meadows 
there  were  carpets  of  flowers.  They  furnished 
highly  esthetic  if  not  very  substantial  food  for 
our  horses  during  our  brief  rests.  They  were 
very  brief,  those  rests.  All  too  soon,  Pete 
would  bring  Angel  to  me,  and  I  would  vault 
into  the  saddle  —  extremely  figurative,  this  — 

30 


BRIDGE  CREEK  TO  BOWMAN  LAKE 

and  we  would  fall  into  line,  Pete  swaying  with 
the  cowboy's  roll  in  the  saddle,  the  Optimist 
bouncing  freely,  Joe  with  an  eye  on  that  pack- 
horse  which  carried  the  delicacies  of  the  trip, 
the  Big  Boy  with  long  legs  that  almost  touched 
the  ground,  the  Middle  Boy  with  eyes  roving 
for  adventure,  the  Little  Boy  deadly  serious 
and  hoping  for  a  bear.  And  somewhere  in  the 
rear,  where  he  could  watch  all  responsibilities 
and  supply  the  smokers  with  matches,  the 
Head. 

That  second  day,  we  crossed  Dutch  Ridge 
and  approached  the  Flathead.  What  I  have 
called  here  the  Flathead  is  known  locally  as 
the  North  Fork.  The  pack-outfit  had  started 
first.  Long  before  we  caught  up  with  them,  we 
heard  the  bells  on  the  lead  horses  ringing 
faintly. 

Passing  a  pack-outfit  on  the  trail  is  a  diffi- 
cult matter.  The  wise  little  horses,  traveling 
free  and  looked  after  only  by  a  wrangler  or  two, 
do  not  like  to  be  passed.  One  of  two  things 
happens  when  the  saddle-outfit  tries  to  pass 
the  pack.   Either  the  pack  starts  on  a  smart 

3i 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

canter  ahead,  or  it  turns  wildly  off  into  the 
forest  to  the  accompaniment  of  much  com- 
plaint by  the  drivers.  A  pack-horse  loose  on  a 
narrow  trail  is  a  dangerous  matter.  With  its 
bulging  pack,  it  worms  its  way  past  anything 
on  the  trail,  and  bad  accidents  have  followed. 
Here,  however,  there  was  room  for  us  to  pass. 

Tiny  gophers  sat  up  beside  the  trail  and 
squeaked  at  us.  A  coyote  yelped.  Bumping 
over  fallen  trees,  creaking  and  groaning  and 
swaying,  came  the  boat-wagon.  Mike  had 
found  a  fishing-line  somewhere,  and  pretended 
to  cast  from  the  bow. 

"Ship  ahoy!"  he  cried,  when  he  saw  us,  and 
his  instructions  to  the  driver  were  purely  nau- 
tical. "Hard  astern !"  he  yelled,  going  down 
a  hill,  and  instead  of  "Gee"  or  "Haw"  he 
shouted  "Port"  or  "Starboard." 

An  acquaintance  of  George  and  Mike  has 
built  a  boat  which  is  intended  to  go  up-stream 
by  the  force  of  the  water  rushing  against  it  and 
turning  a  propeller.  We  had  a  spirited  discus- 
sion about  it. 

"  Because,"  as  one  of  the  men  objected,  "  it 's 
32 


BRIDGE  CREEK  TO  BOWMAN  LAKE 

all  right  until  you  get  to  the  head  of  the  stream. 
Then  what  are  you  going  to  do?"  he  asked. 
"She'll  only  go  up  —  she  won't  go  down." 

Pete,  the  chief  guide,  was  a  German.  He  was 
rather  uneasy  for  fear  we  intended  to  cross  the 
Canadian  line.  But  we  reassured  him.  A  big 
blond  in  a  wide-flapping  Stetson,  black  Angora 
chaps,  and  flannel  shirt  with  a  bandana,  he 
led  our  little  procession  into  the  wilderness  and 
sang  as  he  rode.  The  Head  frequently  sang 
with  him.  And  because  the  only  song  the  Head 
knew  very  well  in  German  was  the  "Lorelei," 
we  had  it  hour  after  hour.  Being  translated 
to  one  of  the  boatmen,  he  observed:  "I  have 
known  girls  like  that.  I  guess  I  'd  leave  most 
any  boat  for  them.  But  I  'd  leave  this  boat  for 
most  any  girl." 

We  were  approaching  the  mountains,  climb- 
ing slowly  but  steadily.  We  passed  through 
Lone  Tree  Prairie,  where  one  great  pine  domi- 
nated the  country  for  miles  around,  and  stopped 
by  a  small  river  for  luncheon. 

Of  all  the  meals  that  we  took  in  the  open, 
perhaps  luncheon  was  the  most  delightful. 

33 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

Condensed  milk  makes  marvelous  cocoa.  We 
opened  tins  of  things,  consulted  maps,  eased 
the  horses'  cinches,  rested  our  own  tired  bodies 
for  an  hour  or  so.  For  the  going,  while  much 
better  than  we  had  expected,  was  still  slow. 
It  was  rare,  indeed,  to  be  able  to  get  the  horses 
out  of  a  walk.  And  there  is  no  more  muscle- 
racking  occupation  than  riding  a  walking  horse 
hour  after  hour  through  a  long  day. 

By  the  end  of  the  second  day  we  were  well 
away  from  even  that  remote  part  of  civiliza- 
tion from  which  we  had  started,  and  a  terri- 
ble fact  was  dawning  on  us.  The  cook  did  not 
like  us! 

Now,  we  all  have  our  small  vanities,  and 
mine  has  always  been  my  success  with  cooks. 
I  like  cooks.  As  time  goes  on,  I  am  increasingly 
dependent  on  cooks.  I  never  fuss  a  cook,  or 
ask  how  many  eggs  a  cake  requires,  or  remark 
that  we  must  be  using  the  lard  on  the  hard- 
wood floors.  I  never  make  any  of  the  small 
jests  on  that  order,  with  which  most  house- 
wives try  to  reduce  the  cost  of  living. 

No;  I  really  go  out  of  my  way  to  ignore  the 
34 


BRIDGE  CREEK  TO  BOWMAN  LAKE 

left-overs,  and  not  once  on  this  trip  had  I  so 
much  as  mentioned  dish-towels  or  anything 
unpleasant.  I  had  seen  my  digestion  slowly 
going  with  a  course  of  delicious  but  indigest- 
ible saddle-bags,  which  were  all  we  had  for 
bread. 

But  —  I  was  failing.  Bill  unpacked  and 
cooked  and  packed  up  again  and  rode  on  the 
chuck- wagon.  But  there  was  something  wrong. 
Perhaps  it  was  the  fall  out  of  the  wagon.  Per- 
haps we  were  too  hungry.  We  were  that,  I 
know.  Perhaps  he  looked  ahead  through  the 
vista  of  days  and  saw  that  formidable  equip- 
ment of  fishing-tackle,  and  mentally  he  was 
counting  the  fish  to  clean  and  cook  and  clean 
and  cook  and  clean  and  — 

The  center  of  a  camping-trip  is  the  cook.  If, 
in  the  spring,  men's  hearts  turn  to  love,  in  the 
woods  they  turn  to  food.  And  cooking  is  a 
temperamental  art.  No  unhappy  cook  can 
make  a  souffle.  Not,  of  course,  that  we  had 
souffle. 

A  camp  cook  should  be  of  a  calm  and  placid 
disposition.    He  has  the  hardest  job  that  I 

35 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

know  of.  He  cooks  with  inadequate  equipment 
on  a  tiny  stove  in  the  open,  where  the  air  blows 
smoke  into  his  face  and  cinders  into  his  food. 
He  must  cook  either  on  his  knees  or  bending 
over  to  within  a  foot  or  so  of  the  ground.  And 
he  must  cook  moving,  as  it  were.  Worse  than 
that,  he  must  cook  not  only  for  the  party  but 
for  a  hungry  crowd  of  guides  and  packers  that 
sits  around  in  a  circle  and  watches  him,  and 
urges  him,  and  gets  under  his  feet,  and,  if  he 
is  unpleasant,  takes  his  food  fairly  out  of 
the  frying-pan  under  his  eyes  if  he  is  not  on 
guard.  He  is  the  first  up  in  the  morning  and 
the  last  in  bed.  He  has  to  dry  his  dishes  on 
anything  that  comes  handy,  and  then  pack 
all  of  his  grub  on  an  unreliable  horse  and  start 
off  for  the  next  eating-ground. 

So,  knowing  all  this,  and  also  that  we  were 
about  a  thousand  miles  from  the  nearest  em- 
ployment-office and  several  days'  hard  riding 
from  a  settlement,  we  went  to  Bill  with  trib- 
ute. We  praised  his  specialties.  We  gave  him 
a  college  lad,  turned  guide  for  the  summer,  to 
assist  him.    We  gathered  up  our  own  dishes. 

36 


*K>W*J 


e> 


BRIDGE  CREEK  TO  BOWMAN  LAKE 

We  inquired  for  his  bruise.  But  gloom  hung 
over  him  like  a  cloud. 

And  he  could  cook.  Well  — 

We  had  made  a  forced  trip  that  day,  and  the 
last  five  miles  were  agonizing.  In  vain  we  sat 
sideways  on  our  horses,  threw  a  leg  over  the 
pommel,  got  off,  and  walked  and  led  them. 
Bowman  Lake,  our  objective  point,  seemed  to 
recede. 

Very  few  people  have  ever  seen  Bowman 
Lake.  Yet  I  believe  it  is  one  of  the  most  beau- 
tiful lakes  in  this  country.  It  is  not  large,  per- 
haps only  twelve  miles  long  and  from  a  mile  to 
two  miles  in  width.  Save  for  the  lower  end,  it 
lies  entirely  surrounded  by  precipitous  and 
inaccessible  peaks — old  Rainbow,  on  whose 
mist-cap  the  setting  sun  paints  a  true  rainbow 
day  after  day,  Square  Peak,  Reuter  Peak,  and 
Peabody,  named  with  the  usual  poetic  instinct 
of  the  Geological  Survey.  They  form  a  nat- 
ural wall,  round  the  upper  end  of  the  lake,  of 
solid-granite  slopes  which  rise  over  a  mile 
in  height  above  it.  Perpetual  snow  covers 
the  tops  of   these  mountains,   and,  melting 

37 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

in  innumerable  waterfalls,  feeds  the  lake  be- 
low. 

So  far  as  I  can  discover,  we  were  taking 
the  first  boat,  with  the  possible  exception  of  an 
Indian  canoe  long  ago,  to  Bowman  Lake.  Not 
the  first  boat,  either,  for  the  Geological  Survey 
had  nailed  a  few  boards  together,  and  the  ruin 
of  this  venture  was  still  decaying  on  the  shore. 

There  was  a  report  that  Bowman  Lake  was 
full  of  trout.  That  was  one  of  the  things  we  had 
come  to  find  out.  It  was  for  Bowman  Lake 
primarily  that  all  the  reels  and  flies  and  other 
lure  had  been  arranged.  If  it  was  true,  then 
twenty-four  square  miles  of  virgin  lake  were 
ours  to  fish  from. 


IV 

A  FISHERMAN'S  PARADISE 

After  our  first  view  of  the  lake,  the  instant 
decision  was  to  make  a  permanent  camp  there 
for  a  few  days.  And  this  we  did.  Tents  were 
put  up  for  the  luxurious-minded,  three  of  them. 
Mine  was  erected  over  me,  when,  as  I  had  pre- 
determined, I  had  found  a  place  where  I  could 
lie  comfortably.  The  men  belonging  to  the 
outfit,  of  course,  slept  under  the  stars.  A 
packer,  a  guide,  or  the  cook  with  an  outfit  like 
ours  has,  outside  of  such  clothing  as  he  wears 
or  carries  rolled  in  his  blankets,  but  one  pos- 
session —  and  that  is  his  tarp  bed.  With  such  a 
bed,  a  can  of  tomatoes,  and  a  gun,  it  is  said  that 
a  cow-puncher  can  go  anywhere. 

Once  or  twice  I  was  awake  in  the  morning 
before  the  cook's  loud  call  of  "Come  and  get 
it!"  brought  us  from  our  tents.  I  never  ceased 
to  view  with  interest  this  line  of  tarp  beds, 
each  with  its  sleeping  occupant,  his  hat  on  the 

39 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

ground  beside  him,  ready,  when  the  call  came, 
to  sit  up  blinking  in  the  sunlight,  put  on  his 
hat,  crawl  out,  and  be  ready  for  the  day. 

The  boats  had  traveled  well.  The  next 
morning,  after  a  breakfast  of  ham  and  eggs, 
fried  potatoes,  coffee,  and  saddle-bags,  we 
were  ready  to  try  them  out. 

And  here  I  shall  be  generous.  For  this  means 
that  next  year  we  shall  go  there  and  find  other 
outfits  there  before  us,  and  people  in  the  latest 
thing  in  riding-clothes,  and  fancy  trout-creels 
and  probably  sixty-dollar  reels. 
f  Bowman  Lake  is  a  fisherman's  paradise. 
The  first  day  on  the  lake  we  caught  sixty-nine 
cut-throat  trout  averaging  a  pound  each,  and 
this  without  knowing  where  to  look. 

In  the  morning,  we  could  see  them  lying 
luxuriously  on  shelving  banks  in  the  sun- 
light, only  three  to  six  feet  below  the  surface. 
They  rose,  like  a  shot,  to  the  flies.  For  some 
reason,  George  Locke,  our  fisherman,  resented 
their  taking  the  Parmachene  Belle.  Perhaps 
because  the  trout  of  his  acquaintance  had  not 
cared  for  this  fly.  Or  maybe  he  considered  the 

40 


A  FISHERMAN'S  PARADISE 

Belle  not  sportsmanly.  The  Brown  Hackle  and 
Royal  Coachman  did  well,  however,  and,  in 
later  fishing  on  this  lake,  we  found  them  more 
reliable  than  the  gayer  flies.  In  the  afternoon, 
the  shallows  failed  us.  But  in  deep  holes  where 
the  brilliant  walls  shelved  down  to  incredible 
depths,  they  rose  again  in  numbers. 

It  was  perfectly  silent.  Doubtless,  count- 
less curious  wild  eyes  watched  us  from  the 
mountain-slopes  and  the  lake-borders.  But  we 
heard  not  even  the  cracking  of  brushwood  under 
cautious  feet.  The  tracks  of  deer,  where  they 
had  come  down  to  drink,  a  dead  mountain- 
lion  floating  in  a  pool,  the  slow  flight  of  an 
eagle  across  the  face  of  old  Rainbow,  and  no 
sound  but  the  soft  hiss  of  a  line  as  it  left  the 
reel  —  that  was  Bowman  Lake,  that  day,  as 
it  lay  among  its  mountains.  So  precipitous 
are  the  slopes,  so  rank  the  vegetation  where  the 
forest  encroaches,  that  we  were  put  to  it  to  find 
a  ridge  large  enough  along  the  shore  to  serve 
as  a  foothold  for  luncheon.  At  last  we  found  a 
tiny  spot,  perhaps  ten  feet  long  by  three  feet 
wide,  and  on  that  we  landed.    The  sun  went 

4i 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

down;  the  rainbow  clouds  gathered  about  the 
peaks  above,  and  still  the  trout  were  rising. 
When  at  last  we  turned  for  our  ten-mile  row 
back  to  camp,  it  was  almost  dusk. 

Now  and  then,  when  I  am  tired  and  the 
things  of  this  world  press  close  and  hard,  I 
think  of  those  long  days  on  that  lonely  lake, 
and  the  home-coming  at  nightfall.  Toward 
the  pin-point  of  glow  —  the  distant  camp-fire 
which  was  our  beacon  light  —  the  boat  moved 
to  the  long,  tired  sweep  of  the  oars ;  around  us 
the  black  forest,  the  mountains  overhead  glow- 
ing and  pink,  as  if  lighted  from  within.  And 
then,  at  last,  the  grating  of  our  little  boat  on 
the  sand  —  and  night. 

During  the  day,  our  horses  were  kept  in  a 
rope  corral.  Sometimes  they  were  quiet;  some- 
times a  spirit  of  mutiny  seemed  to  possess  the 
entire  thirty-one.  There  is  in  such  a  string 
always  one  bad  horse  that,  with  ears  back  and 
teeth  showing,  keeps  the  entire  bunch  milling. 
When  such  a  horse  begins  to  stir  up  trouble, 
the  wrangler  tries  to  rope  him  and  get  him 
out.   Mad  excitement  follows  as  the  noose 

42 


A  FISHERMAN'S  PARADISE 

whips  through  the  air.  But  they  stay  in  the 
corral.  So  curious  is  the  equine  mind  that 
it  seldom  realizes  that  it  could  duck  and  go 
under  the  rope,  or  chew  it  through,  or,  for  that 
matter,  strain  against  it  and  break  it. 

At  night,  we  turned  the  horses  loose.  Al- 
most always,  in  the  morning,  some  were  missing, 
and  had  to  be  rounded  up.  The  greater  part, 
however,  stayed  close  to  the  bell-mare.  It  was 
our  first  night  at  Bowman  Lake,  I  think,  that 
we  heard  a  mountain-lion  screaming.  The  herd 
immediately  stampeded.  It  was  far  away,  so 
that  we  could  not  hear  the  horses  running. 
But  we  could  hear  the  agitated  and  rapid  ring- 
ing of  the  bell,  and,  not  long  after,  the  great 
cat  went  whining  by  the  camp.  In  the  morn- 
ing, the  horses  were  far  up  the  mountain-side. 

Sometime  I  shall  write  that  article  on  "  Wild 
Animals  I  Have  Missed/ '  We  were  in  a  great 
game-country.  But  we  had  little  chance  to 
creep  up  on  anything  but  deer.  The  bells  of 
the  pack-outfit,  our  own  jingling  spurs,  the 
accouterments,  the  very  tinkle  of  the  tin  cups 
on  our  saddles  must  have  made  our  presence 

43 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

known  to  all  the  wilderness-dwellers  long  be- 
fore we  appeared. 

After  we  had  been  at  Bowman  Lake  a  day 
or  two,  while  at  breakfast  one  morning,  we  saw 
two  of  the  guides  racing  their  horses  in  a  mad 
rush  toward  the  camp.  Just  outside,  one  of 
the  ponies  struck  a  log,  turned  a  somersault, 
and  threw  his  rider,  who,  nothing  daunted, 
came  hurrying  up  on  foot.  They  had  seen  a 
bull  moose  not  far  away.  Instantly  all  was 
confusion.  The  horses  were  not  saddled.  One 
of  the  guides  gave  me  his  and  flung  me  on 
it.  The  Little  Boy  made  his  first  essay  at 
bareback  riding.  In  a  wild  scamper  we  were 
off,  leaping  logs  and  dodging  trees.  The  Little 
Boy  fell  off  with  a  terrific  thud,  and  sat  up, 
looking  extremely  surprised.  And  when  we  had 
got  there,  as  clandestinely  as  a  steam  calliope 
in  a  circus  procession,  the  moose  was  gone. 
I  sometimes  wonder,  looking  back,  whether 
there  really  was  a  moose  there  or  not.  Did  I  or 
did  I  not  see  a  twinkle  in  Bill  Shea's  eye  as 
he  described  the  sweep  of  the  moose's  horns? 
I  wonder. 

44 


The  horses  in  the  rope  corral 


A  FISHERMAN'S  PARADISE 

Birds  there  were  in  plenty;  wild  ducks  that 
swam  across  the  lake  at  terrific  speed  as 
we  approached;  plover-snipe,  tiny  gray  birds 
with  long  bills  and  white  breasts,  feeding  along 
the  edge  of  the  lake  peacefully  at  our  very  feet; 
an  eagle  carrying  a  trout  to  her  nest.  Brown 
squirrels  came  into  the  tents  and  ate  our  choco- 
late and  wandered  over  us  fearlessly  at  night. 
Bears  left  tracks  around  the  camp.  But  we 
saw  none  after  we  left  the  Lake  McDonald 
country. 

Yet  this  is  a  great  game-country.  The  war- 
den reports  a  herd  of  thirty-six  moose  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Bowman  Lake;  mountain- 
lion,  lynx,  marten,  bear,  and  deer  abound.  A 
trapper  built  long  ago  a  substantial  log  shack 
on  the  north  shore  of  the  lake,  and  although 
it  is  many  years  since  it  was  abandoned,  it  is 
still  almost  weather-proof.  All  of  us  have  our 
dreams.  Some  dayl  should  like  to  go  back  and 
live  for  a  little  time  in  that  forest  cabin.  In 
the  long  snow-bound  days  after  he  set  his 
traps,  the  trapper  had  busied  himself  fitting  it 
up.    A  tin  can  made  his  candle-bracket  on  the 

45 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

wall,  axe-hewn  planks  formed  a  table  and  a 
bench,  and  diagonally  across  a  corner  he  had 
built  his  fireplace  of  stones  from  the  lakeside. 

He  had  a  simple  method  of  constructing  a 
chimney;  he  merely  left  without  a  roof  that  cor- 
ner of  the  cabin  and  placed  slanting  boards  in 
it.  He  had  made  a  crane,  too,  which  swung  out 
over  the  fireplace.  All  of  the  Rocky  Mountains 
were  in  his  back  garden,  and  his  front  yard  was 
Bowman  Lake. 

We  had  had  fair  weather  so  far.  But  now 
rain  set  in.  Hail  came  first;  then  a  steady  rain. 
The  tents  were  cold.  We  got  out  our  slickers 
and  stood  out  around  the  beach  fire  in  the 
driving  storm,  and  ate  our  breakfast  of  hot 
cakes,  fried  ham,  potatoes  and  onions  cooked 
together,  and  hot  coffee.  The  cook  rigged  up 
a  tarpaulin  over  his  little  stove  and  stood  there 
muttering  and  frying.  He  had  refused  to  don 
a  slicker,  and  his  red  sweater,  soaking  up  the 
rain,  grew  heavy  with  moisture  and  began  to 
stretch.   Down  it  crept,  down  and  down. 

The  cook  straightened  up  from  his  frying- 
pan  and  looked  at  it.  Then  he  said :  — 

46 


A  FISHERMAN'S  PARADISE 

"There,  little  sweater,  don't  you  cry; 
You  '11  be  a  blanket  by  and  by." 

This  little  touch  of  humor  on  his  part 
cheered  us.  Perhaps,  seeing  how  sporting  we 
were  about  the  weather,  he  was  going  to  like 
us  after  all.  Well  — 

Our  new  tents  leaked  —  disheartening  little 
drips  that  came  in  and  wandered  idly  over  our 
blankets,  to  lodge  in  little  pools  here  and  there. 
A  cold  wind  blew.  I  resorted  to  that  camper's 
delight  —  a  stone  heated  in  the  camp-fire  —  to 
warm  my  chilled  body.  We  found  one  or  two 
magazines,  torn  and  dejected,  and  read  them, 
advertisements  and  all.  And  still,  when  it 
seemed  the  end  of  the  day,  it  was  not  high 
noon. 

By  afternoon,  we  were  saturated;  the  camp 
steamed.  We  ate  supper  after  dark,  standing 
around  the  camp-fire,  holding  our  tin  plates  of 
food  in  our  hands.  The  firelight  shone  on  our 
white  faces  and  dripping  slickers.  The  horses 
stood  with  their  heads  low  against  the  storm. 
The  men  of  the  outfit  went  to  bed  on  the  sodden 
ground  with  the  rain  beating  in  their  faces. 

47 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

The  next  morning  was  gray,  yet  with  a  hint 
of  something  better.  At  eight  o'clock,  the  clouds 
began  to  lift.  Their  solidity  broke.  The  lower 
edge  of  the  cloud-bank  that  had  hung  in  a 
heavy  gray  line,  straight  and  ominous,  grew 
ragged.  Shreds  of  vapor  detached  themselves 
and  moved  off,  grew  smaller,  disappeared. 
Overhead,  the  pall  was  thinner.  Finally  it 
broke,  and  a  watery  ray  of  sunlight  came 
through.  And,  at  last,  old  Rainbow,  at  the 
upper  end  of  the  lake,  poked  her  granite 
head  through  its  vapory  sheathings.  Angel, 
my  white  horse,  also  eyed  the  sky,  and  then, 
putting  her  pink  nose  under  the  corral-rope, 
she  gently  worked  her  way  out.  The  rain  was 
over. 

The  horses  provided  endless  excitement. 
Whether  at  night  being  driven  off  by  madly 
circling  riders  to  the  grazing-ground  or 
rounded  up  into  the  corral  in  the  morning, 
they  gave  the  men  all  they  could  do.  Getting 
them  into  the  corral  was  like  playing  pigs- 
in-clover.  As  soon  as  a  few  were  in,  and 
the  wrangler  started  for  others,  the  captives 

48 


A  FISHERMAN'S  PARADISE 

escaped  and  shot  through  the  camp.  There 
were  times  when  the  air  seemed  full  of  flying 
hoofs  and  twitching  ears,  of  swinging  ropes 
and  language. 

On  the  last  day  at  Bowman  Lake,  we  real- 
ized that  although  the  weather  had  lifted,  the 
cook's  spirits  had  not.  He  was  polite  enough 
—  he  had  always  been  polite  to  the  party.  But 
he  packed  in  a  dejected  manner.  There  was 
something  ominous  in  the  very  way  he  rolled 
up  the  strawberry  jam  in  sacking. 

The  breaking-up  of  a  few  days'  camp  is  a 
busy  time.  The  tents  are  taken  down  at  dawn 
almost  over  one's  head.  Blankets  are  rolled 
and  strapped;  the  pack-ponies  groan  and  try 
to  roll  their  packs  off. 

Bill  Shea  quotes  a  friend  of  his  as  contending 
that  the  way  to  keep  a  pack-pony  cinched  is 
to  put  his  pack  on  him,  throw  the  diamond 
hitch,  cinch  him  as  tight  as  possible,  and  then 
take  him  to  a  drinking-place  and  fill  him  up 
with  water.  However,  we  did  not  resort  to  this. 


TO  KINTLA  LAKE 

We  had  washed  at  dawn  in  the  cold  lake.  The 
rain  had  turned  to  snow  in  the  night,  and  the 
mountains  were  covered  with  a  fresh  white 
coating.  And  then,  at  last,  we  were  off,  the 
wagons  first,  although  we  were  soon  to  pass 
them.  We  had  lifted  the  boats  out  of  the  water 
and  put  them  lovingly  in  their  straw  again. 
And  Mike  and  George  formed  the  crew.  The 
guides  were  ready  with  facetious  comments. 

"Put  up  a  sail!"  they  called.  "Never  give 
up  the  ship! "  was  another  favorite.  The  Head, 
who  has  a  secret  conviction  that  he  should 
have  had  his  voice  trained,  warbled  joy- 
ously :  — 

"I  '11  stick  to  the  ship,  lads; 
You  save  your  lives. 
I  've  no  one  to  love  me; 

You  've  children  and  wives." 

And  so,  still  in  the  cool  of  the  morning,  our 
long  procession  mounted  the  rise  which  some 

50 


TO  KINTLA  LAKE 

great  glacier  deposited  ages  ago  at  the  foot  of 
what  is  now  Bowman  Lake.  We  turned  longing 
eyes  back  as  we  left  the  lake  to  its  winter  ice 
and  quiet.  For  never  again,  probably,  will  it 
be  ours.  We  have  given  its  secret  to  the  world. 

At  two  o'clock  we  found  a  ranger's  cabin 
and  rode  into  its  enclosure  for  luncheon. 
Breakfast  had  been  early,  and  we  were  very 
hungry.  We  had  gone  long  miles  through  the 
thick  and  silent  forest,  and  now  we  wanted 
food.  We  wanted  food  more  than  we  wanted 
anything  else  in  the  world.  We  sat  in  a  cir- 
cle on  the  ground  and  talked, about  food. 

And,  at  last,  the  chuck-wagon  drove  in.  It 
had  had  a  long,  slow  trip.  We  stood  up  and 
gave  a  hungry  cheer,  and  then  —  Bill  was 
gone!  Some  miles  back  he  had  halted  the 
wagon,  got  out,  taken  his  bed  on  his  back,  and 
started  toward  civilization  afoot.  We  stared 
blankly  at  the  teamster. 

"Well,"  we  said;  "what  did  he  say?" 

"All  he  said  to  me  was,  'So  long/  "  said  the 
teamster. 

And  that  was  all  there  was  to  it.  So  there 
5i 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

we  were  in  the  wilderness,  far,  far  from  a  cook. 
The  hub  of  our  universe  had  departed.  Or,  to 
make  the  figure  modern,  we  had  blown  out  a 
tire.  And  we  had  no  spare  one. 

I  made  my  declaration  of  independence  at 
once.  I  could  cook;  but  I  would  not  cook  for 
that  outfit.  There  were  too  many;  they  were 
too  hungry.  Besides,  I  had  come  on  a  pleasure- 
trip,  and  the  idea  of  cooking  for  fifteen  men 
and  thirty-one  horses  was  too  much  for  me. 
I  made  some  cocoa  and  grumbled  while  I 
made  it.  We  lunched  out  of  tins  and  in  savage 
silence.  When  we  spoke,  it  was  to  impose  hor- 
rible punishments  on  the  defaulting  cook. 
We  hoped  he  would  enjoy  his  long  walk  back 
to  civilization  without  food. 

"Food!"  answered  one  of  the  boys.  "He's 
got  plenty  cached  in  that  bed  of  his,  all  right. 
What  you  should  have  done,"  he  said  to  the 
teamster,  "was  to  take  his  bed  from  him  and 
let  him  starve." 

In  silence  we  finished  our  luncheon;  in  si- 
lence, mounted  our  horses.  In  black  and  hope- 
less silence  we  rode  on  north,  farther  and 

52 


TO  KINTLA  LAKE 

farther  from  cooks  and  hotels  and  tables- 
d'h6te. 

We  rode  for  an  hour  —  two  hours.  And,  at 
last,  sitting  in  a  cleared  spot,  we  saw  a  man 
beside  the  trail.  He  was  the  first  man  we  had 
seen  in  days.  He  was  sitting  there  quite  idly. 
Probably  that  man  to-day  thinks  that  he  took 
himself  there  on  his  own  feet,  of  his  own 
volition.  We  know  better.  He  was  directed 
there  for  our  happiness.  It  was  a  direct  act 
of  Providence.  For  we  rode  up  to  him  and 
said:  — 

"Do  you  know  of  any  place  where  we  can 
find  a  cook?" 

And  this  man,  who  had  dropped  from 
heaven,  replied: 

"I  am  a  cook.19 

So  we  put  him  on  our  extra"saddle-horse  and 
took  him  with  us.  He  cooked  for  us  with  might 
and  main,  day  and  night,  until  the  trip  was 
over.  And  if  you  don't  believe  this  story, 
write  to  Norman  Lee,  Kintla,  Montana,  and 
ask  him  if  it  is  true.  What  is  more,  Norman 
Lee  could  cook.    He  could  cook  on  his  knees, 

53 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

bending  over,  and  backward.  He  had  been  in 
Cuba,  in  the  Philippines,  in  the  Boxer  Rebel- 
lion in  China,  and  was  now  a  trapper;  is  now 
a  trapper,  for,  as  I  write  this,  Norman  Lee  is 
trapping  marten  and  lynx  on  the  upper  left- 
hand  corner  of  Montana,  in  one  of  the  empty 
spaces  of  the  world. 

We  were  very  happy.  We  caracoled  — 
whatever  that  may  be.  We  sang  and  whistled, 
and  we  rode.  How  we  rode!  We  rode,  and 
rode,  and  rode,  and  rode,  and  rode,  and  rode, 
and  rode.  And,  at  last,  just  when  the  end  of 
endurance  had  come,  we  reached  our  night 
camp. 

Here  and  there  upon  the  west  side  of  Gla- 
cier Park  are  curious,  sharply  defined  treeless 
places,  surrounded  by  a  border  of  forest.  On 
Round  Prairie,  that  night,  we  pitched  our 
tents  and  slept  the  sleep  of  the  weary,  our 
heads  pillowed  on  war-bags  in  which  the  heel 
of  a  slipper,  the  edge  of  a  razor-case,  a  bottle 
of  sunburn  lotion,  and  the  tooth-end  of  a  comb 
made  sleeping  an  adventure. 

It  was  cold.  It  was  always  cold  at  night. 
54 


TO  KINTLA  LAKE 

But,  in  the  morning,  we  wakened  to  brilliant 
sunlight,  to  the  new  cook's  breakfast,  and  to 
another  day  in  the  saddle.  We  were  roused  at 
dawn  by  a  shrill  yell. 

Startled,  every  one  leaped  to  the  opening 
of  his  tent  and  stared  out.  It  proved,  however, 
not  to  be  a  mountain-lion,  and  was,  indeed, 
nothing  more  than  one  of  the  packers  strug- 
gling to  get  into  a  wet  pair  of  socks,  and  giving 
vent  to  his  irritation  in  a  wild  fury  of  wrath. 

As  Pete  and  Bill  Shea  and  Tom  Farmer  threw 
the  diamond  hitch  over  the  packs  that  morning, 
they  explained  to  me  that  all  camp  cooks  are 
of  two  kinds  —  the  good  cooks,  who  are  evil 
of  disposition,  and  the  tin-can  cooks,  who  only 
need  a  can-opener  to  be  happy.  But  I  lived  to 
be  able  to  refute  that.  Norman  Lee  was  a  cook, 
and  he  was  also  amiable. 

But  that  morning,  in  spite  of  the  bright  sun- 
light, started  ill.  For  seven  horses  were  miss- 
ing, and  before  they  were  rounded  up,  the 
guides  had  ridden  a  good  forty  miles  of  forest 
and  trail.  But,  at  last,  the  wanderers  were 
brought  in  and  we  were  ready  to  pack. 

55 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

On  a  pack-horse  there  are  two  sets  of  rope. 
There  is  a  sling-rope,  twenty  or  twenty-five 
feet  long,  and  a  lash-rope,  which  should  be 
thirty-five  feet  long.  The  sling-rope  holds  the 
side  pack;  the  top  pack  is  held  by  the  lash-rope 
and  the  diamond  hitch.  When  a  cow-puncher 
on  a  bronco  yells  for  a  diamond,  he  does  not 
refer  to  a  jewel.  He  means  a  lash-rope.  When 
the  diamond  is  finally  thrown,  the  packer  puts 
his  foot  against  the  horse's  face  and  pulls.  The 
packer  pulls,  and  the  horse  grunts.  If  the 
packer  pulls  a  shade  too  much,  the  horse  bucks, 
and  there  is  an  exciting  time  in  which  every- 
body clears  and  the  horse  has  the  field  —  every 
one,  that  is,  but  Joe,  whose  duty  it  was  to  be 
on  the  spot  in  dangerous  moments.  Generally, 
however,  by  the  time  he  got  his  camera  set  up 
and  everything  ready,  the  bucker  was  feeding 
placidly  and  the  excitement  was  over. 

We  rather  stole  away  from  Round  Prairie 
that  morning.  A  settler  had  taken  advantage 
of  a  clearing  some  miles  away  to  sow  a  little 
grain.  When  our  seven  truants  were  found 
that  brilliant  morning,  they  had  eaten  up  prac- 

56 


Bear-grass 


)  p 


TO  KINTLA  LAKE 

tically  the  grain-field  and  were  lying  gorged  in 
the  center  of  it. 

So  "we  folded  our  tents  like  the  Arabs,  and 
as  silently  stole  away."  (This  has  to  be  used  in 
every  camping-story,  and  this  seems  to  be  a 
good  place  for  it.) 

We  had  come  out  on  to  the  foothills  again 
or  our  way  to  Kintla  Lake.  Again  we  were 
near  the  Flathead,  and  beyond  it  lay  the  blue 
and  purple  of  the  Kootenai  Hills.  The  Koote- 
nais  on  the  left,  the  Rockies  on  the  right,  we 
were  traveling  north  in  a  great  flat  basin. 

The  meadow-lands  were  full  of  flowers. 
There  was  rather  less  Indian  paint-brush  than 
on  the  east  side  of  the  park.  We  were  too  low 
for  much  bear-grass.  But  there  were  masses 
everywhere  of  June  roses,  true  forget-me-nots, 
and  larkspur.  And  everywhere  in  the  burnt 
areas  was  the  fireweed,  that  phoenix  plant  that 
springs  up  from  the  ashes  of  dead  trees. 

There  were,  indeed,  trees,  flowers,  birds, 
fish  —  everything  but  fresh  meat.  We  had  had 
no  fresh  meat  since  the  first  day  out.  And  now 
my  soul  revolted  at  the  sight  of  bacon.     I 

57 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

loathed  all  ham  with  a  deadly  loathing.  I  had 
eaten  canned  salmon  until  I  never  wanted  to 
see  it  again.  And  our  provisions  were  getting 
low. 

Just  to  the  north,  where  we  intended  to 
camp,  was  Starvation  Ridge.  It  seemed  to  be 
an  ominous  name. 

Norman  Lee  knew  a  man  somewhere  within 
a  radius  of  one  hundred  miles  —  they  have  no 
idea  of  distance  there  —  who  would  kill  a  forty- 
pound  calf  if  we  would  send  him  word.  But  it 
seemed  rather  too  much  veal.  We  passed  it  up. 

On  and  on,  a  hot  day,  a  beautiful  trail,  but  no 
water.  No  little  rivulets  crossing  the  path,  no 
icy  lakes,  no  rolling  cataracts  from  the  moun- 
tains. We  were  tanned  a  blackish  purple.  We 
were  saddle-sore.  One  of  the  guides  had  a  bottle 
of  liniment  for  saddle-gall  and  suggested  rub- 
bing it  on  the  saddle.  Packs  slipped  and  were 
tightened.  The  mountain  panorama  unrolled 
slowly  to  our  right.  And  all  day  long  the  boat- 
men struggled  with  the  most  serious  problem 
yet,  for  the  wagon-trail  was  now  hardly  good 
enough  for  horses. 

58 


TO  KINTLA  LAKE 

Where  the  trail  turned  off  toward  the  moun- 
tains and  Kintla  Lake,  we  met  a  solitary  horse- 
man. He  had  ridden  sixty  miles  down  and 
sixty  miles  back  to  get  his  mail.  There  is  a 
sort  of  R.F.D.  in  this  corner  of  the  world,  but 
it  is  not  what  I  should  call  in  active  operation. 
It  was  then  August,  and  there  had  been  just 
two  mails  since  the  previous  Christmas! 

Aside  from  the  Geological  Survey,  very  few 
people,  except  an  occasional  trapper,  have  ever 
seen  Kintla  Lake.  It  lies,  like  Bowman  Lake, 
in  a  recess  in  the  mountains.  We  took  some 
photographs  of  Kintla  Peak,  taking  our  boats 
to  the  upper  end  of  the  lake  for  the  work.  They 
are,  so  far  as  I  can  discover,  the  only  photo- 
graphs ever  taken  of  this  great  mountain  which 
towers,  like  Rainbow,  a  mile  or  so  above  the 
lake. 

Across  from  Kintla,  there  is  a  magnificent 
range  of  peaks  without  any  name  whatever. 
The  imagination  of  the  Geological  Survey 
seemed  to  die  after  Starvation  Ridge;  at  least, 
they  stopped  there.  Kintla  is  a  curious  lemon- 
yellow  color,  a  great,  flat  wall  tapering  to  a 

59 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

point  and  frequently  hidden  under  a  cap  of 
clouds. 

But  Kintla  Lake  is  a  disappointment  to  the 
fisherman.  With  the  exception  of  one  of  the 
guides,  who  caught  a  four-pound  bull-trout 
there,  repeated  whippings  of  the  lake  with  the 
united  rods  and  energies  of  the  entire  party 
failed  to  bring  a  single  rise.  No  fish  leaped 
of  an  evening;  none  lay  in  the  shallows  along 
the  bank.  It  appeared  to  be  a  dead  lake.  I 
have  a  strong  suspicion  that  that  guide  took 
away  Kintla's  only  fish,  and  left  it  without 
hope  of  posterity. 

We  rested  at  Kintla,  — for  a  strenuous  time 
was  before  us,  —  rested  and  fasted.  For  sup- 
plies were  now  very  low.  Starvation  Ridge 
loomed  over  us,  and  starvation  stared  us  in  the 
face.  We  had  counted  on  trout,  and  there  were 
no  trout.  That  night,  we  supped  off  our  last 
potatoes  and  off  cakes  made  of  canned  salmon 
browned  in  butter.  Breakfast  would  have  to 
be  a  repetition  minus  the  potatoes.  We  were 
just  a  little  low  in  our  minds. 

The  last  thing  I  saw  that  night  was  the 
60 


■rwm  | 

/ys 

J^^^m 

« 

^    »-#£          . ..;      | 

.;.  V-" 

TO  KINTLA  LAKE 

cook's  shadowy  figure  as  he  crouched  work- 
ing over  his  camp-fire. 

And  we  wakened  in  the  morning  to  catas- 
trophe. In  spite  of  the  fact  that  we  had 
starved  our  horses  the  day  before,  in  order  to 
keep  them  grazing  near  camp  that  night,  they 
had  wandered.  Eleven  were  missing,  and 
eleven  remained  missing.  Up  the  mountain- 
slopes  and  through  the  woods  the  wranglers 
rode  like  madmen,  only  to  come  in  on  dejected 
horses  with  failure  written  large  all  over  them. 
One  half  of  the  saddlers  were  gone;  my  Angel 
had  taken  wings  and  flown  away. 

We  sat  dejectedly  on  the  bank  and  fished 
those  dead  waters.  We  wrangled  among  our- 
selves. Around  us  was  the  forest,  thick  and 
close  save  for  the  tiny  clearing,  perhaps  forty 
feet  by  forty  feet.  There  was  no  open  space, 
no  place  to  walk,  nothing  to  do  but  sit  and 
wait. 

At  last,  some  of  us  in  the  saddle  and  some 
afoot,  we  started.  It  looked  as  though  the 
walkers  might  have  a  long  hike.  But  some- 
time about  midday  there  was  a  sound  of  wild 

61 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

cheering  behind  us,  and  the  wranglers  rode  up 
with  the  truants.  They  had  been  far  up  on  the 
mountain-side. 

It  is  curious  how  certain  comparatively  un- 
important things  stand  out  about  such  a  trip 
as  this.  Of  Kintla  itself,  I  have  no  very  vivid 
memories.  But  standing  out  very  sharply  is 
that  figure  of  the  cook  crouched  over  his  dying 
fire,  with  the  black  forest  all  about  him.  There 
is  a  picture,  too,  of  a  wild  deer  that  came  down 
to  the  edge  of  the  lake  to  drink  as  we  sat  in  the 
first  boat  that  had  ever  been  on  Kintla  Lake, 
whipping  a  quiet  pool.  And  there  is  a  clear 
memory  of  the  assistant  cook,  the  college  boy 
who  was  taking  his  vacation  in  the  wilds,  whist- 
ling the  Dvorak  "Humoresque"  as  he  dried 
the  dishes  on  a  piece  of  clean  sacking. 


VI 

RUNNING  THE  RAPIDS  OF  THE  FLATHEAD 

It  was  now  approaching  time  for  Bob's  great 
idea  to  materialize.  For  this,  and  to  this  end, 
had  he  brought  the  boats  on  their  strange  land- 
journey  —  such  a  journey  as,  I  fancy,  very  few 
boats  have  ever  had  before. 

The  project  was,  as  I  have  said,  to  run  the 
unknown  reaches  of  the  North  Fork  of  the 
Flathead  from  the  Canadian  border  to  the 
town  of  Columbia  Falls. 

"The  idea  is  this,"  Bob  had  said:  "It's 
never  been  done  before,  do  you  see?  It  makes 
the  trip  unusual  and  all  that." 

"Makes  it  unusually  risky,"  I  had  ob- 
served. 

"Well,  there's  a  risk  in  pretty  nearly  every- 
thing," he  had  replied  blithely.  "There 's  a  risk 
in  crossing  a  city  street,  for  that  matter.  Riding 
these  horses  is  a  risk,  if  you  come  to  that.  Any- 
how, it  would  make  a  good  story." 

63 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

So  that  is  why  I  did  it.  And  this  is  the  story: 
.  We  were  headed  now  for  the  Flathead  just 
south  of  the  Canadian  line.  To  reach  the  river, 
it  was  necessary  to  take  the  boats  through  a 
burnt  forest,  without  a  trail  of  any  sort.  They 
leaped  and  plunged  as  the  wagon  scrambled, 
jerked,  careened,  stuck,  detoured,  and  finally 
got  through.  There  were  miles  of  such  going 
—  heart-breaking  miles  —  and  at  the  end  we 
paused  at  the  top  of  a  sixty-foot  bluff  and 
looked  down  at  the  river. 

Now,  I  like  water  in  a  tub  or  drinking-glass 
or  under  a  bridge.  I  am  very  keen  about  it. 
But  I  like  still  water  —  quiet,  well-behaved, 
stay-at-home  water.  The  North  Fork  of  the 
Flathead  River  is  a  riotous,  debauched,  and 
highly  erratic  stream.  It  staggers  in  a  series  of 
wild  zigzags  for  a  hundred  miles  of  waterway 
from  the  Canadian  border  to  Columbia  Falls, 
our  destination.  And  that  hundred  miles  of 
whirlpools,  jagged  rocks,  and  swift  and  deadly 
canons  we  were  to  travel.  I  turned  around  and 
looked  at  the  Family.  It  was  my  ambition  that 
had  brought  them  to  this.    We  might  never 

64 


RUNNING  THE  FLATHEAD  RAPIDS 

again  meet,  as  a  whole.  We  were  sure  to  get  to 
Columbia  Falls,  but  not  at  all  sure  to  get  there 
in  the  boats.  I  looked  at  the  boats;  they  were, 
I  believe,  stout  river-boats.  But  they  were 
small.   Undeniably,  they  were  very  small. 

The  river  appeared  to  be  going  about  ninety 
miles  an  hour.  There  was  one  hope,  however. 
Perhaps  they  could  not  get  the  boats  down  over 
the  bluff.  It  seemed  a  foolhardy  thing  even  to 
try.  I  suggested  this  to  Bob.  But  he  replied, 
rather  tartly,  that  he  had  not  brought  those 
boats  at  the  risk  of  his  life  through  all  those 
miles  of  wilderness  to  have  me  fail  him  now. 

He  painted  the  joys  of  the  trip.  He  expressed 
so  strong  a  belief  in  them  that  he  said  that  he 
himself  would  ride  with  the  outfit,  thus  per- 
mitting most  of  the  Family  in  the  boats  that 
first  day.  He  said  the  river  was  full  of  trout.  I 
expressed  a  strong  doubt  that  any  trout  could 
live  in  that  stream  and  hold  their  own.  I  felt 
that  they  had  all  been  washed  down  years  ago. 
And  again  I  looked  at  the  Family. 

Because  I  knew  what  would  happen.  The 
Family  would  insist  on  going  along.  It  was  not 

65 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

going  to  let  mother  take  this  risk  alone;  it  was 
going  to  drown  with  her  if  necessary. 

The  Family  jaws  were  set.   They  were  going. 

The  entire  outfit  lowered  the  wagon  by  rop- 
ing it  down.  There  was  one  delicious  moment 
when  I  thought  boats  and  all  were  going  over 
the  edge.  But  the  ropes  held.  Nothing  hap- 
pened. 

They  put  the  boats  in  the  water. 

I  had  one  last  rather  pitiful  thought  as  I  took 
my  seat  in  the  stern  of  one  of  them. 

"This  is  my  birthday,"  I  said  wistfully. 
"It's  rather  a  queer  way  to  spend  a  birthday, 
I  think." 

But  this  was  met  with  stern  silence.  I  was 
to  have  my  story  whether  I  wanted  it  or  not. 

Yet  once  in  the  river,  the  excitement  got  me. 
I  had  run  brief  spells  of  rapids  before.  There 
had  been  a  gasp  or  two  and  it  was  over.  But 
this  was  to  be  a  prolonged  four  days'  gasp, 
with  intervals  only  to  sleep  at  night. 

Fortunately  for  all  of  us,  it  began  rather 
quietly.  The  current  was  swift,  so  that,  once 
out  into  the  stream,  we  shot  ahead  as  if  we  had 

66 


RUNNING  THE  FLATHEAD  RAPIDS 

been  fired  out  of  a  gun.  But,  for  all  that,  the 
upper  reaches  were  comparatively  free  of  great 
rocks.  Friendly  little  sandy  shoals  beckoned 
to  us.  The  water  was  shallow.  But,  even  then, 
I  noticed  what  afterward  I  found  was  to  be  a 
delusion  of  the  entire  trip.  > 

This  was  the  impression  of  riding  downhill. 
I  do  not  remember  now  how  much  the  Flat- 
head falls  per  mile.  I  have  an  impression  that 
it  is  ninety  feet,  but  as  that  would  mean  a  drop 
of  nine  thousand  feet,  or  almost  two  miles, 
during  the  trip,  I  must  be  wrong  somewhere. 
It  was  sixteen  feet,  perhaps. 

But  hour  after  hour,  on  the  straight  stretches, 
there  was  that  sensation,  on  looking  ahead,  of 
staring  down  a  toboggan-slide.  It  never  grew 
less.  And  always  I  had  the  impression  that  just 
beyond  that  glassy  slope  the  roaring  meant 
uncharted  falls  —  and  destruction.  It  never 
did. 

The  outfit,  following  along  the  trail,  was  to 
meet  us  at  night  and  have  camp  ready  when 
we  appeared  —  if  we  appeared.  Only  a  few  of 
us  could  use  the  boats.  George  Locke  in  one, 

67 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

Mike  Shannon  in  the  other,  could  carry  two 
passengers  each.  For  the  sake  of  my  story,  I 
was  to  take  the  entire  trip;  the  others  were  to 
alternate. 

I  do  not  know,  but  I  am  very  confident  that 
no  other  woman  has  ever  taken  this  trip.  I  am 
fairly  confident  that  no  other  men  have  ever 
taken  it.  We  could  find  no  one  who  had  heard 
of  it  being  taken.  All  that  we  knew  was  that 
it  was  the  North  Fork  of  the  Flathead  River, 
and  that  if  we  stayed  afloat  long  enough,  we 
would  come  out  at  Columbia  Falls.  The  boat- 
men knew  the  lower  part  of  the  river,  but  not 
the  upper  two  thirds  of  it. 

Now  that  it  is  over,  I  would  not  give  up 
my  memory  of  that  long  run  for  anything.  It 
was  one  of  the  most  unique  experiences  in  a 
not  uneventful  career.  It  was  beautiful  always, 
terrible  occasionally.  There  were  dozens  of 
places  each  day  where  the  boatmen  stood  up, 
staring  ahead  for  the  channel,  while  the  boats 
dodged  wildly  ahead.  But  always  these  skill- 
ful pilots  of  ours  found  a  way  through.  And  so 
fast  did  we  go  that  the  worst  places  were  al- 

68 


Still-water  fishing 


RUNNING  THE  FLATHEAD  RAPIDS 

ways  behind  us  before  we  had  time  to  be 
really  terrified. 

The  Flathead  River  in  these  upper  reaches 
is  fairly  alive  with  trout.  On  the  second  day, 
I  think  it  was,  I  landed  a  bull-trout  that 
weighed  nine  pounds,  and  got  it  with  a  six- 
ounce  rod.  I  am  very  proud  of  that.  I  have 
eleven  different  pictures  of  myself  holding  the 
fish  up.  There  were  trout  everywhere.  The 
difficulty  was  to  stop  the  boat  long  enough  to 
get  them.  In  fact,  we  did  not  stop,  save  in  an 
occasional  eddy  in  the  midst  of  the  torrent. 
We  whipped  the  stream  as  we  flew  along.  Un- 
der great  boulders,  where  the  water  seethed 
and  roared,  under  deep  cliffs  where  it  flew  like 
a  mill-race,  there  were  always  fish. 

It  was  frightful  work  for  the  boatmen.  It 
required  skill  every  moment.  There  was  not  a 
second  in  the  day  when  they  could  relax.  Only 
men  trained  to  river  rapids  could  have  done  it, 
and  few,  even,  of  these.  To  the  eternal  credit 
of  George  and  Mike,  we  got  through.  It  was 
nothing  else. 

On  the  evening  of  the  first  day,  in  the  dusk 
69 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

which  made  the  river  doubly  treacherous,  we 
saw  our  camp-fire  far  ahead. 

With  the  going-down  of  the  sun,  the  river 
had  grown  cold.  We  were  wet  with  spray, 
cramped  from  sitting  still  and  holding  on.  But 
friendly  hands  drew  our  boats  to  shore  and 
helped  us  out. 


VII 

THE  SECOND  DAY  ON  THE  FLATHEAD 

In  a  way,  this  is  a  fairy-story.  Because  a  good 
fairy  had  been  busy  during  our  absence.  Days 
before,  at  the  ranger's  cabin,  unknown  to  most 
of  us,  an  order  had  gone  down  to  civilization  for 
food.  During  all  those  days  under  Starvation 
Ridge,  food  had  been  on  the  way  by  pack-horse 
—  food  and  an  extra  cook. 

So  we  went  up  to  camp,  expecting  more 
canned  salmon  and  fried  trout  and  little  else, 
and  beheld  — 

A  festive  board  set  with  candles  —  the  board, 
however,  in  this  case  is  figurative;  it  was 
the  ground  covered  with  a  tarpaulin  —  fried 
chicken,  fresh  green  beans,  real  bread,  jam, 
potatoes,  cheese,  cake,  candy,  cigars,  and 
cigarettes.  And  —  champagne! 

That  champagne  had  traveled  a  hundred 
niiles  on  horseback.  It  had  been  cooled  in  the 
icy  water  of  the  river.  We  drank  it  out  of  tin 

i7i. 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

cups.  We  toasted  each  other.  We  toasted  the 
Flathead  flowing  just  beside  us.  We  toasted 
the  full  moon  rising  over  the  Kootenais.  We 
toasted  the  good  fairy.  The  candles  burned  low 
in  their  sockets  —  this,  also,  is  figurative ;  they 
were  stuck  on  pieces  of  wood.  With  due  for- 
mality I  was  presented  with  a  birthday  gift, 
a  fishing-reel  purchased  by  the  Big  and  the 
Middle  and  the  Little  Boy. 

Of  all  the  birthdays  that  I  can  remember 
—  and  I  remember  quite  a  few  —  this  one 
was  the  most  wonderful.  Over  mountain-tops, 
glowing  deep  pink  as  they  rose  above  masses 
of  white  clouds,  came  slowly  a  great  yellow 
moon.  It  turned  the  Flathead  beside  us  to 
golden  glory,  and  transformed  the  evergreen 
thickets  into  fairy  glades  of  light  and  shadow. 
Flickering  candles  inside  the  tents  made  them 
glow  in  luminous  triangles  against  their  back- 
ground of  forest. 

Behind  us,  in  the  valley  lands  at  the  foot  of 
the  Rockies,  the  horses  rested  and  grazed,  and 
eased  their  tired  backs.  The  men  lay  out  in 
the  open  and  looked  at  the  stars.  The  air  was 

72. 


SECOND  DAY  ON  THE  FLATHEAD 

fragrant  with  pine  and  balsam.  Night  creatures 
called  and  answered. 

And,  at  last,  we  went  to  our  tents  and  slept. 
For  the  morning  was  a  new  day,  and  I  had 
not  got  all  my  story. 

That  first  day's  run  of  the  river  we  got  fifty 
trout,  ranging  from  one  half-pound  to  four 
pounds.  We  should  have  caught  more,  but 
they  could  not  keep  up  with  the  boat.  We 
caught,  also,  the  most  terrific  sunburn  that  I 
have  ever  known  anything  about.  We  had 
thought  that  we  were  thoroughly  leathered, 
but  we  had  not  passed  the  primary  stage, 
apparently.  In  vain  I  dosed  my  face  with  cold- 
cream  and  talcum  powder,  and  with  a  liquid 
warranted  to  restore  the  bloom  of  youth  to  an 
aged  skin  (mine,  however,  is  not  aged). 

My  journal  for  the  second  day  starts  some- 
thing like  this :  — 

Cold  and  gray.  Stood  in  the  water  fifteen  min- 
utes in  hip-boots  for  a  moving  picture.  River 
looks  savage. 

Of  that  second  day,  one  beautiful  picture 
stands  out  with  distinctness. 

73 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

The  river  is  lovely;  it  winds  and  twists 
through  deep  forests  with  always  that  marvel- 
ous background  of  purple  mountains  capped 
with  snow.  Here  and  there,  at  long  intervals, 
would  come  a  quiet  half-mile  where,  although 
the  current  was  incredibly  swift,  there  were,  at 
least,  no  rocks.  It  was  on  coming  round  one  of 
these  bends  that  we  saw,  out  from  shore  and 
drinking  quietly,  a  deer.  He  was  incredulous 
at  first,  and  then  uncertain  whether  to  be 
frightened  or  not.  He  threw  his  head  up  and 
watched  us,  and  then,  turning,  leaped  up  the 
bank  and  into  the  forest. 

Except  for  fish,  there  was  surprisingly  little 
life  to  be  seen.  Bald  eagles  sat  by  the  river, 
as  intent  on  their  fishing  as  we  were  on  ours. 
Wild  ducks  paddled  painfully  up  against  the 
current.  Kingfishers  fished  in  quiet  pools.  But 
the  real  interest  of  the  river,  its  real  life,  lay  in 
its  fish.  What  piscine  tragedies  it  conceals,  with 
those  murderous,  greedy,  and  powerful  assas- 
sins, the  bull-trout,  pursuing  fish,  as  I  have 
seen  them,  almost  into  the  landing-net!  What 
joyous  interludes  where,  in  a  sunny  shallow, 

74 


I 


-5 


SECOND  DAY  ON  THE  FLATHEAD 

tiny  baby  trout  played  tag  while  we  sat  and 
watched  them! 

The  danger  of  the  river  is  not  all  in  the  cur- 
rent. There  are  quicksands  along  the  Flathead, 
sands  underlain  with  water,  apparently  secure 
but  reaching  up  clutching  hands  to  the  un- 
wary. Our  noonday  luncheon,  taken  along  the 
shore,  was  always  on  some  safe  and  gravelly 
bank  or  tiny  island. 

Our  second  camp  on  the  Flathead  was  less 
fortunate  than  the  first.  Always,  in  such  an 
outfit  as  ours,  the  first  responsibility  is  the 
horses.  Camp  must  be  made  within  reach  of 
grazing-grounds  for  them,  and  in  these  moun- 
tain and  forest  regions  this  is  almost  always  a 
difficult  matter.  Here  and  there  are  meadows 
where  horses  may  eat  their  fill;  but,  generally, 
pasture  must  be  hunted.  Often,  long  after  we 
were  settled  for  the  night,  our  horses  were  still 
ranging  far,  hunting  for  grass. 

So,  on  this  second  night,  we  made  an  un- 
comfortable camp  for  the  sake  of  the  horses,  a 
camp  on  a  steep  bluff  sloping  into  the  water  in 
a  dead  forest.  It  had  been  the  intention,  as  the 

75 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

river  was  comparatively  quiet  here,  to  swim 
the  animals  across  and  graze  them  on  the  other 
side.  But,  although  generally  a  horse  can  swim 
when  put  to  it,  we  discovered  too  late  that  sev- 
eral horses  in  our  string  could  not  swim  at  all. 
In  the  attempt  to  get  them  across,  one  horse 
with  a  rider  was  almost  drowned.  So  we  gave 
that  up,  and  they  were  driven  back  five  miles 
into  the  country  to  pasture. 

There  is  something  ominous  and  most  de- 
pressing about  a  burnt  forest.  There  is  no  life, 
nothing  green.  It  is  a  ghost-forest,  filled  with 
tall  tree  skeletons  and  the  mouldering  bones  of 
those  that  have  fallen,  and  draped  with  dry  gray 
moss  that  swings  in  the  wind.  Moving  through 
such  a  forest  is  almost  impossible.  Fallen  and 
rotten  trees,  black  and  charred  stumps  cover 
every  foot  of  ground.  It  required  two  hours' 
work  with  an  axe  to  clear  a  path  that  I  might 
get  to  the  little  ridge  on  which  my  tent  was 
placed.  The  day  had  been  gray,  and,  to  add  to 
our  discomfort,  there  was  a  soft,  fine  rain.  The 
Middle  Boy  had  developed  an  inflamed  knee 
and  was  badly  crippled.   Sitting  in  the  drizzle 

76 


/• 


SECOND  DAY  ON  THE  FLATHEAD 

beside  the  camp-fire,  I  heated  water  in  a  tin 
pail  and  applied  hot  compresses  consisting  of 
woolen  socks. 

It  was  all  in  the  game.  Eggs  tasted  none  the 
worse  for  being  fried  in  a  skillet  into  which  the 
rain  was  pattering.  Skins  were  weather-proof, 
if  clothes  were  not.  And  heavy  tarpaulins  on 
the  ground  protected  our  bedding  from  damp- 
ness. 

The  outfit,  coming  down  by  trail,  had  passed 
a  small  store  in  a  clearing.  They  had  bought  a 
whole  cheese  weighing  eleven  pounds,  a  diffi- 
cult thing  to  transport  on  horseback,  a  wooden 
pail  containing  nineteen  pounds  of  chocolate 
chips,  and  six  dozen  eggs  —  our  first  eggs  in 
many  days. 

In  the  shop,  while  making  the  purchase,  the 
Head  had  pulled  out  a  box  of  cigarettes.  The 
woman  who  kept  the  little  store  had  never  seen 
machine-made  cigarettes  before,  and  examined 
them  with  the  greatest  interest.  For  in  that 
country  every  man  is  his  own  cigarette-maker. 
The  Middle  Boy  later  reported  with  wide 
eyes  that  at  her   elbow   she  kept  a  loaded 

77 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

revolver  lying,  in  plain  view.  She  is  alone  a 
great  deal  of  the  time  there  in  the  wilderness, 
and  probably  she  has  many  strange  visitors. 

It  was  at  the  shop  that  a  terrible  discovery 
was  made.  We  had  been  in  the  wilderness  on 
the  east  side  and  then  on  the  west  side  of  the 
park  for  four  weeks.  And  days  in  the  woods 
are  much  alike.  No  one  had  had  a  calendar. 
The  discovery  was  that  we  had  celebrated  my 
birthday  on  the  wrong  day! 

That  night,  in  the  dead  forest,  we  gathered 
round  the  camp-fire.  I  made  hot  compresses. 
The  packers  and  guides  told  stories  of  the  West, 
and  we  matched  them  with  ones  of  the  East. 
From  across  the  river,  above  the  roaring,  we 
could  hear  the  sharp  stroke  of  the  axe  as 
branches  were  being  cut  for  our  beds.  There 
was  nothing  living,  nothing  green  about  us 
where  we  sat. 

I  am  aware  that  the  camp-fire  is  considered 
one  of  the  things  about  which  the  camper 
should  rave.  My  own  experience  of  camp-fires 
is  that  they  come  too  late  in  the  day  to  be  more 
than  a  warming-time  before  going  to  bed.   We 

78 


SECOND  DAY  ON  THE  FLATHEAD 

were  generally  too  tired  to  talk.  A  little  desul- 
tory conversation,  a  cigarette  or  two,  an  outline 
of  the  next  day's  work,  and  all  were  off  to  bed. 
Yet,  in  that  evergreen  forest;  our  fires  were  al- 
ways rarely  beautiful.  The  boughs  burned  with 
a  crackling  white  flame,  and  when  we  threw  on 
needles,  they  burst  into  stars  and  sailed  far  up 
into  the  night.  As  the  glare  died  down,  each  of 
us  took  his  hot  stone  from  its  bed  of  ashes  and, 
carrying  it  carefully,  retired  with  it. 


VIII 

THROUGH  THE  FLATHEAD  CANON 

The  next  morning  we  wakened  to  sunshine, 
and  fried  trout  and  bacon  and  eggs  for  break- 
fast. The  cook  tossed  his  flapjacks  skillfully. 
As  the  only  woman  in  the  party,  I  sometimes 
found  an  air  of  festivity  about  my  breakfast- 
table.  Whereas  the  others  ate  from  a  tarpaulin 
laid  on  the  ground,  I  was  favored  with  a  small 
box  for  a  table  and  a  smaller  one  for  a  seat.  On 
the  table-box  was  set  my  graniteware  plate, 
knife,  fork,  and  spoon,  a  paper  napkin,  the 
Prince  Albert  and  the  St.  Charles.  Lest  this 
sound  strange  to  the  uninitiated,  the  St.  Charles 
was  the  condensed  milk  and  the  Prince  Albert 
was  an  old  tin  can  which  had  once  contained 
tobacco  but  which  now  contained  the  sugar. 
Thus,  in  our  camp-etiquette,  one  never  asked 
for  the  sugar,  but  always  for  the  Prince  Albert ; 
not  for  the  milk,  but  always  for  the  St.  Charles, 
sometimes  corrupted  to  the  Charlie. 

I  was  late  that  morning.  The  men  had  gone 
80 


THROUGH  THE  FLATHEAD  CANON 

about  the  business  of  preparing  the  boats  for 
the  day.  The  packers  and  guides  were  out 
after  the  horses.  The  cook,  hot  and  weary,  was 
packing  up  for  the  daily  exodus.  He  turned 
and  surveyed  that  ghost-forest  with  a  scowl. 

"Another  camping-place  like  this,  and  I'll 
be  braying  like  a  blooming  burro." 

On  the  third  day,  we  went  through  the  Flat- 
head River  canon.  We  had  looked  forward  to 
this,  both  because  of  its  beauty  and  its  danger. 
Bitterly  complaining,  the  junior  members  of 
the  family  were  exiled  to  the  trail  with  the  ex- 
ception of  the  Big  Boy. 

It  had  been  Joe's  plan  to  photograph  the 
boat  with  the  moving-picture  camera  as  we 
came  down  the  canon.  He  meant,  I  am  sure,  to 
be  on  hand  if  anything  exciting  happened. 
But  impenetrable  wilderness  separated  the 
trail  from  the  edge  of  the  gorge,  and  that  even- 
ing we  reached  the  camp  unphotographed,  un- 
recorded, to  find  Joe  sulking  in  a  corner  and  in- 
clined to  blame  the  forest  on  us. 

In  one  of  the  very  greatest  stretches  of  the 
rapids,  a  long  straightaway,  we  saw  a  pigmy 

81 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

figure,  far  ahead,  hailing  us  from  the  bank. 
"Pigmy"  is  a  word  I  use  generally  with  much 
caution,  since  a  friend  of  mine,  in  the  excite- 
ment of  a  first  baby,  once  published  a  poem 
entitled  "My  Pigmy  Counterpart,"  which  a 
type-setter  made,  in  the  magazine  version, 
"My  Pig,  My  Counterpart." 

Nevertheless,  we  will  use  it  here.  Behind 
this  pigmy  figure  stretched  a  cliff,  more  than 
one  hundred  feet  in  height,  of  sheer  rock  over- 
grown with  bushes.  The  figure  had  apparently 
but  room  on  which  to  stand.  George  stood  up 
and  surveyed  the  prospect. 

"Well,"  he  said,  in  his  slow  drawl,  "if  that's 
lunch,  I  don't  think  we  can  hit  it." 

The  river  was  racing  at  mad  speed.  Great 
rocks  caught  the  current,  formed  whirlpools 
and  eddies,  turned  us  round  again  and  again, 
and  sent  us  spinning  on,  drenched  with  spray. 
That  part  of  the  river  the  boatmen  knew  —  at 
least  by  reputation.  It  had  been  the  scene,  a 
few  years  before,  of  the  tragic  drowning  of  a 
man  they  knew.  For  now  we  were  getting  down 
into  the  better  known  portions. 

82 


THROUGH  THE  FLATHEAD  CANON 

To  check  a  boat  in  such  a  current  seemed  im- 
possible. But  we  needed  food.  We  were  tired 
and  cold,  and  we  had  a  long  afternoon's  work 
still  before  us. 

At  last,  by  tremendous  effort  and  great  skill, 
the  boatmen  made  the  landing.  It  was  the  col- 
lege boy  who  had  clambered  down  the  cliff  and 
brought  the  lunch,  and  it  was  he  who  caught 
the  boats  as  they  were  whirling  by.  We  had  to 
cling  like  limpets  —  whatever  a  limpet  is  —  to 
the  edge,  and  work  our  way  over  to  where  there 
was  room  to  sit  down. 

It  reminded  the  Head  of  Roosevelt's  expres- 
sion about  peace  raging  in  Mexico.  He  con- 
sidered that  enjoyment  was  raging  here. 

Nevertheless,  we  ate.  We  made  the  inevit- 
able cocoa,  warmed  beans,  ate  a  part  of  the 
great  cheese  purchased  the  day  before,  and, 
with  gingersnaps  and  canned  fruit,  managed 
to  eke  out  a  frugal  repast.  And  shrieked  our 
words  over  the  roar  of  the  river. 

It  was  here  that  the  boats  were  roped  down. 
Critical  examination  and  long  debate  with  the 
boatmen  showed  no  way  through.  On  the  far 

83 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

side,  under  the  towering  cliff,  was  an  opening 
in  the  rocks  through  which  the  river  boiled  in  a 
drop  of  twenty  feet. 

So  it  was  fortunate,  after  all,  that  we  had 
been  hailed  from  the  shore  and  had  stopped, 
dangerous  as  it  had  been.  For  not  one  of  us 
would  have  lived  had  we  essayed  that  passage 
under  the  cliff.  The  Flathead  River  is  not  a 
deep  river;  but  the  force  of  its  flow  is  so  great, 
its  drop  so  rapid,  that  the  most  powerful  swim- 
mer is  hopeless  in  such  a  current.  Light  as  our 
flies  were,  again  and  again  they  were  swept 
under  and  held  as  though  by  a  powerful  hand. 

Another  year,  the  Flathead  may  be  a  much 
simpler  proposition  to  negotiate.  Owing  to  the 
unusually  heavy  snows  of  last  winter,  which 
had  not  commenced  to  melt  on  the  mountain- 
tops  until  July,  the  river  was  high.  In  a  normal 
summer,  I  believe  that  this  trip  could  be  taken 
—  although  always  the  boatmen  must  be  ex- 
pert in  river  rapids  —  with  comparative  safety 
and  enormous  pleasure. 

There  is  a  thrill  and  exultation  about  running 
rapids  —  not  for  minutes,  not  for  an  hour  or 

84 


THROUGH  THE  FLATHEAD  CANON 

two,  but  for  days  —  that  gets  into  the  blood. 
And  when  to  that  exultation  is  added  the  most 
beautiful  scenery  in  America,  the  trip  becomes 
well  worth  while.  However,  I  am  not  at  all  sure 
that  it  is  a  trip  for  a  woman  to  take.  I  can  swim, 
but  that  would  not  have  helped  at  all  had  the 
boat,  at  any  time  in  those  four  days,  struck  a 
rock  and  turned  over.  Nor  would  the  men  of 
the  party,  all  powerful  swimmers,  have  had 
any  more  chance  than  I. 

We  were  a  little  nervous  that  afternoon. 
The  canon  grew  wilder;  the  current,  if  possible, 
more  rapid.  But  there  were  fewer  rocks;  the 
river-bed  was  clearer. 

We  were  rapidly  nearing  the  Middle  Fork. 
Another  day  would  see  us  there,  and  from  that 
point,  the  river,  although  swift,  would  lose 
much  of  its  danger. 

Late  the  afternoon  of  the  third  day  we  saw 
our  camp  well  ahead,  on  a  ledge  above  the  river. 
Everything  was  in  order  when  we  arrived.  We 
unloaded  ourselves  solemnly  out  of  the  boats, 
took  our  fish,  our  poles,  our  graft-hooks  and 
landing-nets,  our  fly-books,  my  sunburn  lotion, 

85 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

and  our  weary  selves  up  the  bank.  Then  we  sol- 
emnly shook  hands  all  round.  We  had  come 
through;  the  rest  was  easy. 

On  the  last  day,  the  river  became  almost  a 
smiling  stream.  Once  again,  instead  of  between 
cliffs,  we  were  traveling  between  great  forests 
of  spruce,  tamarack,  white  and  yellow  pine,  fir, 
and  cedar.  A  great  golden  eagle  flew  over  the 
water  just  ahead  of  our  boat.  And  in  the  morn- 
ing we  came  across  our  first  sign  of  civilization 
—  a  wire  trolley  with  a  cage,  extending  across 
the  river  in  lieu  of  a  bridge.  High  up  in  the  air 
at  each  end,  it  sagged  in  the  middle  until  the 
little  car  must  almost  have  touched  the  water. 
We  had  a  fancy  to  try  it,  and  landed  to  make 
the  experiment.  But  some  ungenerous  soul  had 
padlocked  it  and  had  gone  away  with  the  key. 

For  the  first  time  that  day,  it  was  possible  to 
use  the  trolling-lines.  We  had  tried  them  be- 
fore/ but  the  current  had  carried  them  out  far 
ahead  of  the  boat.  Cut-throat  trout  now  and 
then  take  a  spoon.  But  it  is  the  bull-trout 
which  falls  victim,  as  a  rule,  to  the  troll. 

I  am  not  gifted  with  the  trolling-line.  Some- 
86 


THROUGH  THE  FLATHEAD  CANON 

time  I  shall  write  an  article  on  the  humors  of 
using  it  —  on  the  soft  and  sibilant  hiss  with 
which  it  goes  out  over  the  stern;  on  the  rasping 
with  which  it  grates  on  the  edge  of  the  boat  as 
it  holds  on,  stanch  and  true,  to  water-weeds 
and  floating  branches;  on  the  low  moan  with 
which  it  buries  itself  under  a  rock  and  dies ;  on 
the  inextricable  confusion  into  which  it  twists 
and  knots  itself  when,  hand  over  hand,  it  is 
brought  in  for  inspection. 

I  have  spent  hours  over  a  trolling-line,  hours 
which,  otherwise,  I  should  have  wasted  in  idle- 
ness. There  are  thirty-seven  kinds  of  knots 
which,  so  far,  I  have  discovered  in  a  trolling- 
line,  and  I  am  but  at  the  beginning  of  my  fish- 
ing career. 

"  What  are  you  doing,"  the  Head  said  to  me 
that  last  day,  as  I  sat  in  the  stern  busily  work- 
ing at  the  line.   "Knitting?" 

We  got  few  fish  that  day,  but  nobody  cared. 
The  river  was  wide  and  smooth;  the  moun- 
tains had  receded  somewhat;  the  forest  was 
there  to  the  right  and  left  of  us.  But  it  was  an 
open,  smiling  forest.    Still  far  enough  away, 

.87 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

but  slipping  toward  us  with  the  hours,  were 
settlements,  towns,  the  fertile  valley  of  the 
lower  river. 

We  lunched  that  night  where,  just  a  year 
before,  I  had  eaten  my  first  lunch  on  the  Flat- 
head, on  a  shelving,  sandy  beach.  But  this 
time  the  meal  was  somewhat  shadowed  by  the 
fact  that  some  one  had  forgotten  to  put  in 
butter  and  coffee  and  condensed  milk. 

However,  we  were  now  in  that  part  of  the 
river  which  our  boatmen  knew  well.  From  a 
secret  cache  back  in  the  willows,  George  and 
Mike  produced  coffee  and  condensed  milk  and 
even  butter.  So  we  lunched,  and  far  away  we 
heard  a  sound  which  showed  us  how  completely 
our  wilderness  days  were  over  —  the  screech 
of  a  railway  locomotive. 

Late  that  afternoon,  tired,  sunburned,  and 
unkempt,  we  drew  in  at  the  little  wharf  near 
Columbia  Falls.  It  was  weeks  since  we  had 
seen  a  mirror  larger  than  an  inch  or  so  across. 
Our  clothes  were  wrinkled  from  being  used  to 
augment  our  bedding  on  cold  nights.  The 
whites  of  our  eyes  were  bloodshot  with  the  sun. 

88 


THROUGH  THE  FLATHEAD  CANON 

My  old  felt  hat  was  battered  and  torn  with  the 
fish-hooks  that  had  been  hung  round  the  band. 
Each  of  us  looked  at  the  other,  and  prayed  to 
Heaven  that  he  looked  a  little  better  himself. 


IX 

THE  ROUND-UP  AT  KALISPELL 

Columbia  Falls  had  heard  of  our  adventure, 
and  was  prepared  to  do  us  honor.  Automobiles 
awaited  us  on  the  river-bank.  In  a  moment  we 
were  snatched  from  the  jaws  of  the  river  and 
seated  in  the  lap  of  luxury.  If  this  is  a  mixed 
metaphor,  it  is  due  to  the  excitement  of  the 
change.  With  one  of  those  swift  transitions  of 
the  Northwest,  we  were  out  of  the  wilderness 
and  surrounded  by  great  yellow  fields  of  wheat. 
Cleared  land  or  natural  prairie,  these  val- 
leys of  the  Northwest  are  marvelously  fertile. 
Wheat  grows  an  incredible  number  of  bushels 
to  the  acre.  Everything  thrives.  And  on  the 
very  borders  of  the  fields  stands  still  the  wil- 
derness to  be  conquered,  the  forest  to  be 
cleared.  Untold  wealth  is  there  for  the  man 
who  will  work  and  wait,  land  rich  beyond  the 
dreams  of  fertilizer.  But  it  costs  about  eighty 
dollars  an  acre,  I  am  told,  to  clear  forest-land 

90 


THE  ROUND-UP  AT  KALISPELL 

after  it  has  been  cut  over.  It  is  not  a  project, 
this  Northwestern  farming,  to  be  undertaken 
on  a  shoestring.  The  wilderness  must  be  con- 
quered. It  cannot  be  coaxed.  And  a  good 
many  hearts  have  been  broken  in  making  that 
discovery.  A  little  money  —  not  too  little  — 
infinite  patience,  cheerfulness,  and  red-blooded 
effort  —  these  are  the  factors  which  are  con- 
quering the  Northwest. 

I  like  the  Northwest.  In  spite  of  its  preten- 
sions, its  large  cities,  its  wealth,  it  is  still  peo- 
pled by  essential  frontiersmen.  They  are  still 
pioneers  —  because  the  wilderness  encroaches 
still  so  close  to  them.  I  like  their  downright- 
ness,  their  pride  in  what  they  have  achieved, 
their  hatred  of  sham  and  affectation. 

And  if  there  is  to  be  real  progress  among  us 
in  this  present  generation,  the  growth  of  a  po- 
litical and  national  spirit,  that  sturdy  insist- 
ence on  better  things  on  which  our  pioneer 
forefathers  founded  this  nation,  it  is  likely  to 
come,  as  a  beginning,  from  these  newer  parts 
of  our  country.  These  people  have  built  for 
themselves.  What  we  in  the  East  have  inher- 

9i 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

ited,  they  have  made.  They  know  its  exact 
cost  in  blood  and  sweat.  They  value  it.  And 
they  will  do  their  best  by  it. 

Perhaps,  after  all,  this  is  the  end  of  this  par- 
ticular adventure.  And  yet,  what  Western 
story  is  complete  without  a  round-up? 

There  was  to  be  a  round-up  the  next  day  at 
Kalispell,  farther  south  in  that  wonderful  val- 
ley. 

But  there  was  a  difficulty  in  the  way.  Our 
horses  were  Glacier  Park  horses.  Columbia 
Falls  was  outside  of  Glacier  Park.  Kalispell 
was  even  farther  outside  of  Glacier  Park,  and 
horses  were  needed  badly  in  the  Park.  For  last 
year  Glacier  Park  had  the  greatest  boom  in  its 
history  and  found  the  concessionnaires  unpre- 
pared to  take  care  of  all  the  tourists.  What  we 
should  do,  we  knew,  was  to  deadhead  our 
horses  back  into  the  Park  as  soon  as  they  had 
had  a  little  rest. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  there  was  Kalispell 
and  the  round-up.  It  would  make  a  difference 
of  just  one  day.  True,  we  could  have  gone  to 
the  round-up  on  the  train.   But,  for  two  rea- 

92 


THE  ROUND-UP  AT  KALISPELL 

sons,  this  was  out  of  the  question.  First,  it 
would  not  make  a  good  story.  Second,  we 
had  nothing  but  riding-clothes,  and  ours  were 
only  good  to  ride  in  and  not  at  all  to  walk 
about  in. 

After  a  long  and  serious  conclave,  it  was 
decided  that  Glacier  Park  would  not  suffer  by 
the  absence  of  our  string  for  twenty-four  hours 
more. 

On  the  following  morning,  then,  we  set  off 
down  the  white  and  dusty  road,  a  gay  proces- 
sion, albeit  somewhat  ragged.  Sixteen  miles  in 
the  heat  we  rode  that  morning.  It  was  when 
we  were  halfway  there  that  one  of  the  party  — 
it  does  not  matter  which  one  —  revealed  that 
he  had  received  a  telegram  from  the  Govern- 
ment demanding  the  immediate  return  of  our 
outfit.  We  halted  in  the  road  and  conferred. 

It  is  notorious  of  Governments  that  they  are 
short-sighted,  detached,  impersonal,  aloof,  and 
haughty.  We  gathered  in  the  road,  a  gayly 
bandanaed,  dusty,  and  highly  indignant  crowd, 
and  conferred. 

The  telegram  had  been  imperative.  It  did 
93 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

not  request.  It  commanded.  It  unhorsed  us 
violently  at  a  time  when  it  did  not  suit  either 
ourselves  or  our  riding-clothes  to  be  unhorsed. 

We  conferred.  We  were,  we  said,  paying  two 
dollars  and  a  half  a  day  for  each  of  those 
horses.  Besides,  we  were  out  of  adhesive  tape, 
which  is  useful  for  holding  on  patches.  Besides, 
also,  we  had  the  horses.  If  they  wanted  them, 
let  them  come  and  get  them.  Besides,  this 
was  discrimination.  Ever  since  the  Park  was 
opened,  horses  had  been  taken  out  of  it,  either 
on  to  the  Reservation  or  into  Canada,  to  get 
about  to  other  parts  of  the  Park.  Why  should 
the  Government  pick  on  us? 

We  were  very  bitter  and  abusive,  and  the 
rest  of  the  way  I  wrote  mentally  a  dozen  sar- 
castic telegrams.  Yes;  the  rest  of  the  way. 
Because  we  went  on.  With  a  round-up  ahead 
and  the  Department  of  the  Interior  in  the  rear, 
we  rode  forward  to  our  stolen  holiday,  now  and 
then  pausing,  an  eye  back  to  see  if  we  were 
pursued.  Bufnothing  happened;  no  sheriff  in 
a  buckboard  drove  up  with  a  shotgun  across 
his  knees.  The  Government,  or  its  representa- 

94 


THE  ROUND-UP  AT  KALISPELL 

tive  in  Glacier  Park,  was  contenting  itself  with 
foaming  at  the  mouth.  We  rode  on  through 
the  sunlight,  and  sang  as  we  rode. 

Kalispell  is  a  flourishing  and  attractive 
town  of  northwestern  Montana.  It  is  nota- 
ble for  many  other  things  besides  its  annual 
round-up.  But  it  remains  dear  to  me  for  one 
particular  reason. 

My  hat  was  done.  It  had  no  longer  the 
spring  and  elasticity  of  youth.  It  was  scarred 
with  many  rains  and  many  fish-hooks.  It  had 
ceased  to  add  its  necessary  jaunty  touch  to 
my  costume.  It  detracted.  In  its  age,  I  loved 
it,  but  the  Family  insisted  cruelly  on  a  change. 
So,  sitting  on  Angel,  a  new  one  was  brought 
me,  a  chirky  young  thing,  a  cowgirl  affair  of 
high  felt  crown  and  broad  rim. 

And,  at  this  moment,  a  gentleman  I  had 
never  seen  before,  but  who  is  green  in  my 
memory,  stepped  forward  and  presented  me 
with  his  own  hat-band.  It  was  of  leather,  and 
it  bore  this  vigorous  and  inspiriting  inscrip- 
tion: "Give  'er  pep  and  let  'er  buck." 

To-day,  when  I  am  low  in  my  mind,  I  take 
95 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

that  cowgirl  hat  from  its  retreat  and  read  its 
inscription:  "Give  'er  pep  and  let  *er  buck." 
It  is  a  whole  creed. 

Somewhere  among  my  papers  I  have  the 
programme  of  that  round-up  at  Kalispell.  It 
was  a  very  fine  round-up.  There  was  a  herd 
of  buffalo;  there  were  wild  horses  and  long- 
horned  Mexican  steers.  There  was  a  cheer- 
ing crowd.  There  was  roping,  and  marvelous 
riding. 

But  my  eyes  were  fixed  on  the  grand-stand 
with  a  stony  stare. 

I  am  an  adopted  Blackfoot  Indian,  known  in 
the  tribe  as  "Pi-ta-mak-an,"  and  only  a  few 
weeks  before  I  had  had  a  long  conference  with 
the  chiefs  of  the  tribe,  Two  Guns,  White  Calf 
(the  son  of  old  White  Calf,  the  great  chief  who 
dropped  dead  in  the  White  House  during  Pres- 
ident Cleveland's  administration),  Medicine 
Owl  and  Curly  Bear  and  Big  Spring  and  Bird 
Plume  and  Wolf  Plume  and  Bird  Rattler  and 
Bill  Shute  and  Stabs-by-Mistake  and  Eagle 
Child  and  Many  Tail-Feathers  —  and  many 
more. 

96 


Pi-ta-mak-an,  or  Running  Eagle  {Mrs.  Rinehart),  with  two  other 
members  of  the  Blackfoot  Tribe 


THE  ROUND-UP  AT  KALISPELL 

And  these  Indians  had  all  promised  me  that, 
as  soon  as  our  conference  was  over,  they  were 
going  back  to  the  Reservation  to  get  in  their 
hay  and  work  hard  for  the  great  herd  which  the 
Government  had  promised  to  give  them.  They 
were  going  to  be  good  Indians. 

So  I  stared  at  the  grand-stand  with  a  cold 
and  fixed  eye.  For  there,  very  many  miles  from 
where  they  should  have  been,  off  the  Reserva- 
tion without  permission  of  the  Indian  agent, 
painted  and  bedecked  in  all  the  glory  of  their 
forefathers  —  paint,  feathers,  beads,  strings  of 
thimbles  and  little  mirrors  —  handsome,  bland, 
and  enjoying  every  instant  to  the  full  in  their 
childish  hearts,  were  my  chiefs. 

During  the  first  lull  in  the  proceedings,  a 
delegation  came  to  visit  me  and  to  explain. 
This  is  what  they  said:  First  of  all,  they  de- 
sired me  to  make  peace  with  the  Indian  agent. 
He  was,  they  considered,  most  unreasonable. 
There  were  many  times  when  one  could  labor, 
and  there  was  but  one  round-up.  They  peti- 
tioned, then,  that  I  intercede  and  see  that  their 
ration-tickets  were  not  taken  away. 

97 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

And  even  as  the  interpreter  told  me  their 
plea,  one  old  brave  caught  my  hand  and 
pointed  across  to  the  enclosure,  where  a  few 
captive  buffalo  were  grazing.  I  knew  what  it 
meant.  These,  my  Blackfeet,  had  been  the 
great  buffalo-hunters.  With  bow  and  arrow 
they  had  followed  the  herds  from  Canada  to 
the  Far  South.  These  chiefs  had  been  mighty 
hunters.  But  for  many  years  not  a  single 
buffalo  had  their  eyes  beheld.  They  who  had 
lived  by  the  buffalo  were  now  dying  with  them. 
A  few  full-bloods  shut  away  on  a  reservation, 
a  few  buffalo  penned  in  a  corral  —  children  of 
the  open  spaces  and  of  freedom,  both  of  them, 
and  now  dying  and  imprisoned.  For  the  Black- 
feet  are  a  dying  people. 

They  had  come  to  see  the  buffalo. 

But  they  did  not  say  so.  An  Indian  is  a 
stoic.  He  has  both  imagination  and  sentiment, 
but  the  latter  he  conceals.  And  this  was  the  ex- 
planation they  gave  me  for  the  Indian  agent :  — 

I  knew  that,  back  in  my  home,  when  a  friend 
asked  me  to  come  to  an  entertainment,  I  must 
go  or  that  friend  would  be  offended  with  me. 

98 


THE  ROUND-UP  AT  KALISPELL 

And  so  it  was  with  the  Blackfeet  Indians  — 
they  had  been  invited  to  this  round-up,  and 
they  felt  that  they  should  come  or  they  would 
hurt  the  feelings  of  those  who  had  asked  them. 
Therefore,  would  I,  Pi-ta-mak-an,  go  to  the  In- 
dian agent  and  make  their  peace  for  them? 
For,  after  all,  summer  was  short  and  winter 
was  coming.  The  old  would  need  their  ration- 
tickets  again.  And  they,  the  braves,  would 
promise  to  go  back  to  the  Reservation  and 
get  in  the  hay,  and  be  all  that  good  Indians 
should  be. 

And  I,  too,  was  as  good  an  Indian  as  I  knew 
how  to  be,  for  I  scolded  them  all  roundly  and 
then  sat  down  at  the  first  possible  opportunity 
and  wrote  to  the  agent. 

And  the  agent?  He  is  a  very  wise  and  kindly 
man,  facing  one  of  the  biggest  problems  in  our 
country.  He  gave  them  back  their  ration- 
tickets  and  wiped  the  slate  clean,  to  the  eternal 
credit  of  a  Government  that  has  not  often  to 
the  Indian  tempered  justice  with  mercy. 


X 

OFF  FOR  CASCADE  PASS 

How  many  secrets  the  mountains  hold !  They 
have  forgotten  things  we  shall  never  know. 
And  they  are  cruel,  savagely  cruel.  What  they 
want,  they  take.  They  reach  out  a  thousand 
clutching  hands.  They  attack  with  avalanche, 
starvation,  loneliness,  precipice.  They  lure  on 
with  green  valleys  and  high  flowering  meadows 
where  mountain-sheep  move  sedately,  with 
sunlit  peaks  and  hidden  lakes,  with  silence  for 
tired  ears  and  peace  for  weary  souls.  And  then 
—  they  kill. 

Because  man  is  a  fighting  animal,  he  obeys 
their  call,  his  wit  against  their  wisdom  of  the 
ages,  his  strength  against  their  solidity,  his 
courage  against  their  cunning.  And  too  often 
he  loses. 

I  am  afraid  of  the  mountains.  I  have  al- 
ways the  feeling  that  they  are  lying  in  wait.  At 
night,  their  very  silence  is  ominous.  The  crack 
of  ice  as  a  bit  of  slow-moving  glacier  is  dis- 

ioo 


OFF  FOR  CASCADE  PASS 

lodged,  lightning,  and  the  roar  of  thunder 
somewhere  below  where  I  lie  —  these  are  the 
artillery  of  the  range,  and  from  them  I  am  safe. 
I  am  too  small  for  their  heavy  guns.  But  a 
shelving  trail  on  the  verge  of  a  chasm,  a  slip 
on  an  ice-field,  a  rolling  stone  under  a  horse's 
foot  —  these  are  the  weapons  I  fear  above  the 
timber-line. 

Even  below  there  is  danger  —  swamps  and 
rushing  rivers,  but  above  all  the  forest.  In 
mountain  valleys  it  grows  thick  on  the  bodies 
of  dead  forests  beneath.  It  crowds.  There  is 
barefy  room  for  a  tent.  And  all  through  the 
night  the  trees  protest.  They  creak  and  groan 
and  sigh,  and  sometimes  they  burn.  In  a  cul- 
de-sac,  with  only  frowning  cliffs  about,  the 
forest  becomes  ominous,  a  thing  of  dreadful 
beauty.  On  nights  when,  through  the  crevices 
of  the  green  roof,  there  are  stars  hung  in  the 
sky,  the  weight  lifts.  But  there  are  other 
nights  when  the  trees  close  in  like  ranks  of 
hostile  men  and  take  the  spirit  prisoner. 

The  peace  of  the  wilderness  is  not  peace.  It 
is  waiting. 

101 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

On  the  Glacier  Park  trip,  there  had  been  one 
subject  which  came  up  for  discussion  night 
after  night  round  the  camp-fire.  It  resolved  it- 
self, briefly,  into  this :  Should  we  or  should  we 
not  get  out  in  time  to  go  over  to  the  State  of 
Washington  and  there  perform  the  thrilling  feat 
which  Bob,  the  Optimist,  had  in  mind? 

This  was  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the 
organization  of  a  second  pack-outfit  and  the 
crossing  of  the  Cascade  Mountains  on  horse- 
back by  a  virgin  route.  The  Head,  Bob,  and 
Joe  had  many  discussions  about  it.  I  do  not 
recall  that  my  advice  was  ever  asked.  It  is 
generally  taken  for  granted  in  these  wilderness- 
trips  of  ours  that  I  will  be  there,  ready  to  get  a 
story  when  the  opportunity  presents  itself. 

Owing  to  the  speed  with  which  the  North 
Fork  of  the  Flathead  River  descends  from  the 
Canadian  border  to  civilization,  we  had  made 
very  good  time.  And,  at  last,  the  decision  was 
made  to  try  this  new  adventure. 

"  It  will  be  a  bully  story,"  said  the  Optimist, 
"and  you  can  be  dead  sure  of  this:  it's  never 
been  done  before." 

102 


OFF  FOR  CASCADE  PASS 

So,  at  last,  it  was  determined,  and  we  set  out 
on  that  wonderful  harebrain  excursion  of  which 
the  very  memory  gives  me  a  thrill.  Yet,  now 
that  I  know  it  can  be  done,  I  may  try  it  again 
some  day.  It  paid  for  itself  over  and  over  in 
scenery,  in  health,  and  in  thrills.  But  there 
were  several  times  when  it  seemed  to  me  im- 
possible that  we  could  all  get  over  the  range 
alive. 

We  took  through  thirty-one  horses  and  nine- 
teen people.  When  we  got  out,  our  horses  had 
had  nothing  to  eat,  not  a  blade  of  grass  or  a 
handful  of  grain,  for  thirty-six  hours,  and  they 
had  had  very  little  for  five  days. 

On  the  last  morning,  the  Head  gave  his  horse 
for  breakfast  one  rain-soaked  biscuit,  an  ap- 
ple, two  lumps  of  sugar,  and  a  raw  egg.  The 
other  horses  had  nothing. 

We  dropped  three  pack-horses  over  cliffs  in 
two  days,  but  got  them  again,  cut  and  bruised, 
and  we  took  out  our  outfit  complete,  after  two 
weeks  of  the  most  arduous  going  I  have  ever 
known  anything  about.  When  the  news  that 
we  had  got  over  the  pass  penetrated  to  the  set- 

103 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

tlements,  a  pack-outfit  started  over  Cascade 
Pass  in  our  footsteps  to  take  supplies  to  a 
miner.  They  killed  three  horses  on  that  same 
trail,  and  I  believe  gave  it  up  in  the  end. 

Doubtless,  by  next  year,  a  passable  trail  will 
have  been  built  up  to  Doubtful  Lake  and  an- 
other one  up  that  eight-hundred-foot  moun- 
tain-wall above  the  lake,  where,  when  one 
reaches  the  top,  there  is  but  room  to  look  down 
again  on  the  other  side.  Perhaps,  too,  there 
will  be  a  trail  down  the  Agnes  Creek  Valley,  so 
that  parties  can  get  through  easily.  When  that 
is  done,  —  and  it  is  promised  by  the  Forest  Su- 
pervisor,—  one  of  the  most  magnificent  horse- 
back trips  in  the  country  will  be  opened  for  the 
first  time  to  the  traveler. 

Most  emphatically,  the  trip  across  the  Cas- 
cades at  Doubtful  Lake  and  Cascade  Pass  is 
not  a  trip  for  a  woman  in  the  present  condition 
of  things,  although  any  woman  who  can  ride 
can  cross  Cloudy  Pass  and  get  down  Agnes 
Creek  way.  But  perhaps  before  this  is  pub- 
lished, the  Chelan  National  Forest  will  have 
been  made  a  National  Park.    It  ought  to  be. 

104 


OFF  FOR  CASCADE  PASS 

It  is  superb.  There  is  no  other  word  for  it.  And 
it  ought  not  to  be  called  a  forest,  because  it 
seems  to  have  everything  but  trees.  Rocks 
and  rivers  and  glaciers  —  more  in  one  county 
than  in  all  Switzerland,  they  claim  —  and  gran- 
ite peaks  and  hair-raising  precipices  and  lakes 
filled  with  ice  in  midsummer.  But  not  many 
trees,  until,  at  Cascade  Pass,  one  reaches  the 
boundaries  of  the  Washington  National  For- 
est and  begins  to  descend  the  Pacific  slope. 

The  personnel  of  our  party  was  slightly 
changed.  Of  the  original  one,  there  remained 
the  Head,  the  Big,  the  Middle,  and  the  Little 
Boy,  Joe,  Bob,  and  myself.  To  these  we  added 
at  the  beginning  six  persons  besides  our  guides 
and  packers.  Two  of  them  did  not  cross  the 
pass,  however  —  the  Forest  Pathologist  from 
Washington,  who  travels  all  over  the  country 
watching  for  tree-diseases  and  tree-epidemics 
and  who  left  us  after  a  few  days,  and  the  Su- 
pervisor of  Chelan  Forest,  who  had  but  just 
come  from  Oregon  and  was  making  his  first 
trip  over  his  new  territory. 

We  were  fortunate,  indeed,  in  having  four 
105 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

forest-men  with  us,  men  whose  lives  are  spent 
in  the  big  timber,  who  know  the  every  mood 
and  tense  of  the  wilderness.  For  besides  these 
two,  the  Pathologist  and  the  Forest  Supervisor, 
there  was  "Silent  Lawrie"  Lindsley,  naturalist, 
photographer,  and  lover  of  all  that  is  wild,  a 
young  man  who  has  spent  years  wandering 
through  the  mountains  around  Ghelan,  camera 
and  gun  at  hand,  the  gun  never  raised  against 
the  wild  creatures,  but  used  to  shoot  away 
tree-branches  that  interfere  with  pictures,  or, 
more  frequently,  to  trim  a  tree  into  such  out- 
lines as  fit  it  into  the  photograph. 

And  then  there  was  the  Man  Who  Went 
Ahead.  For  forty  years  this  man,  Mr.  Hilli- 
goss,  has  lived  in  the  forest.  Hardly  a  big  tim- 
ber-deal in  the  Northwest  but  was  passed  by 
him.  Hardly  a  tree  in  that  vast  wilderness  but 
he  knew  it.  He  knew  everything  about  the 
forest  but  fear  —  fear  and  fatigue.  And,  with 
an  axe  and  a  gun,  he  went  ahead,  clearing  trail, 
blazing  trees,  and  marking  the  detours  to 
camp-sites  by  an  arrow  made  of  bark  and 
thrust  through  a  slash  in  a  tree. 

106 


OFF  FOR  CASCADE  PASS 

Hour  after  hour  we  would  struggle  on,  seeing 
everywhere  evidences  of  his  skill  on  the  trail, 
to  find,  just  as  endurance  had  reached  its  limit, 
the  arrow  that  meant  camp  and  rest. 

And  —  there  was  Dan  Devore  and  his  dog, 
Whiskers.  Dan  Devore  was  our  chief  guide 
and  outfitter,  a  soft  voiced,  bearded,  big  souled 
man,  neither  very  large  nor  very  young.  All 
soul  and  courage  was  Dan  Devore,  and  one  of 
the  proud  moments  of  my  life  was  when  it  was 
all  over  and  he  told  me  I  had  done  well.  I 
wanted  most  awfully  to  have  Dan  Devore 
think  I  had  done  well. 

He  was  sitting  on  a  stone  at  the  time,  I  re- 
member, and  Whiskers,  his  old  Airedale,  had 
his  head  on  Dan's  knee.  All  of  his  thirteen 
years,  Whiskers  had  wandered  through  the 
mountains  with  Dan  Devore,  always  within 
call.  To  see  Dan  was  to  see  Whiskers;  to  see 
Whiskers  was  to  see  Dan. 

He  slept  on  Dan's  tarp  bed  at  night,  and  in 
the  daytime  led  our  long  and  winding  proces- 
sion. Indomitable  spirit  that  he  was,  he  trav- 
eled three  miles  to  our  one,  saved  us  from  the 

107 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

furious  onslaughts  of  many  a  marmot  and 
mountain-squirrel,  and,  in  the  absence  of  fresh 
meat,  ate  his  salt  pork  and  scraps  with  the  zest 
of  a  hungry  traveler. 

Then  there  were  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Fred.  I  call 
them  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Fred,  because,  like  Joe, 
that  was  a  part  of  their  name.  I  will  be  frank 
about  Mrs.  Fred.  I  was  worried  about  her  be- 
fore I  knew  her.  I  was  accustomed  to  rough- 
ing it;  but  how  about  another  woman?  Would 
she  be  putting  up  her  hair  in  curlers  every  night, 
and  whimpering  when,  as  sometimes  happens, 
the  slow  gait  of  her  horse  became  intolerable? 
Little  did  I  know  Mrs.  Fred.  She  was  a  natural 
wanderer,  a  follower  of  the  trail,  a  fine  and 
sound  and  sporting  traveling  companion.  And 
I  like  to  think  that  she  is  typical  of  the  women 
of  that  Western  country  which  bred  her,  fem- 
inine to  the  core,  but  strong  and  sweet  still. 

Both  the  Freds  were  great  additions.  Was 
it  not  after  Mr.  Fred  that  we  trailed  on  that 
famous  game-hunt  of  ours,  of  which  a  spirited 
account  is  coming  later?  Was  it  not  Mr.  Fred 
who,  night  after  night,  took  the  junior  Rine- 

108 


OFF  FOR  CASCADE  PASS 

harts  away  from  an  anxious  mother  into  the 
depths  of  the  forest  or  the  bleakness  of  moun- 
tain-slopes, there  to  lie,  armed  to  the  teeth,  and 
wait  for  the  first  bears  to  start  out  for  break- 
fast? 

Now  you  have  us,  I  think,  except  the  men  of 
the  outfit,  and  they  deserve  space  I  cannot  give 
them.  They  were  a  splendid  lot,  and  it  was  by 
their  incessant  labor  that  we  got  over. 

Try  to  see  us,  then,  filing  along  through  deep 
valleys,  climbing  cliffs,  stumbling,  struggling, 
not  talking  much,  a  long  line  of  horses  and  rid- 
ers. First,  far  ahead,  Mr.  Hilligoss.  Then  the 
riders,  led  by  " Silent  Lawrie,"  with  me  just 
behind  him,  because  of  photographs.  Then,  at 
the  head  of  the  pack-horses,  Dan  Devore.  Then 
the  long  line  of  pack-ponies,  sturdy  and  willing, 
and  piled  high  with  our  food,  our  bedding,  and 
our  tents.  And  here,  there,  and  everywhere, 
Joe,  with  the  moving-picture  camera. 

We  were  determined,  this  time,  to  have  no 
repetition  of  the  Glacier  Park  fiasco,  where 
Bill,  our  cook,  had  deserted  us  at  a  bad  time  — 
although  it  is  always  a  bad  time  when  the  cook 

109 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

leaves.  So  now  we  had  two  cooks.  Much  as  I 
love  the  mountains  and  the  woods,  the  purple 
of  evening  valleys,  the  faint  pink  of  sunrise  on 
snow-covered  peaks,  the  most  really  thrilling 
sight  of  a  camping-trip  is  two  cooks  bending 
over  an  iron  grating  above  a  fire,  one  frying 
trout  and  the  other  turning  flapjacks. 

Our  trail  led  us  through  one  of  the  few  re- 
maining unknown  portions  of  the  United  States. 
It  cannot  long  remain  unknown.  It  is  too  su- 
perb, too  wonderful.  And  it  has  mineral  in  it, 
silver  and  copper  and  probably  coal.  The  Mid- 
dle Boy,  who  is  by  way  of  being  a  chemist 
and  has  systematically  blown  himself  up  with 
home-made  explosives  for  years  —  the  Middle 
Boy  found  at  least  a  dozen  silver  mines  of  fabu- 
lous value,  although  the  men  in  the  party  in- 
sisted that  his  specimens  were  iron  pyrites  and 
other  unromantic  minerals. 


XI 

LAKE  CHELAN  TO  LYMAN  LAKE 

Now,  as  to  where  we  were  —  those  long  days 
of  fording  rivers  and  beating  our  way  through 
jungle  or  of  dizzy  climbs  up  to  the  snow,  those 
short  nights,  so  cold  that  six  blankets  hardly 
kept  us  warm,  while  our  tired  horses  wandered 
far,  searching  for  such  bits  of  grass  as  grew 
among  the  shale. 

In  the  north-central  part  of  the  State  of 
Washington,  Nature  has  done  a  curious  thing. 
She  has  built  a  great  lake  in  the  eastern  shoul- 
ders of  the  Cascade  Mountains.  Lake  Chelan, 
more  than  fifty  miles  long  and  averaging  a  mile 
and  a  half  in  width,  is  ten  hundred  and  seventy- 
five  feet  above  sea-level,  while  its  bottom  is 
four  hundred  feet  below  the  level  of  the  ocean. 
It  is  almost  completely  surrounded  by  granite 
walls  and  peaks  which  reach  more  than  a  mile 
and  a  half  into  the  air. 

The  region  back  from  the  lake  is  practically 
unknown.   A  small  part  of  it  has  never  been 

in 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

touched  by  the  Geological  Survey,  and,  in  one 
or  two  instances,  we  were  able  to  check  up 
errors  on  our  maps.  Thus,  a  lake  shown  on  our 
map  as  belonging  at  the  head  of  McAllister 
Creek  really  belongs  at  the  head  of  Rainbow 
Creek,  while  McAllister  Lake  is  not  shown  at 
all.  Mr.  Coulter,  a  forester  who  was  with  us  for 
a  time,  last  year  discovered  three  lakes  at  the 
head  of  Rainbow  Creek  which  have  never  been 
mapped,  and,  so  far  as  could  be  learned,  had 
never  been  seen  by  a  white  man  before.  Yet 
Lake  Chelan  itself  is  well  known  in  the  North- 
west. It  is  easily  reached,  its  gateway  being 
the  famous  Wenatchee  Valley,  celebrated  for 
its  apples. 

It  was  from  Chelan  that  we  were  to  make 
our  start.  Long  before  we  arrived,  Dan  Devore 
and  the  packers  were  getting  the  outfit  ready. 

Yet  the  first  glimpse  of  Chelan  was  not  at- 
tractive. We  had  motored  half  a  day  through 
that  curious,  semi-arid  country,  which,  when 
irrigated,  proves  the  greatest  of  all  soils  in  the 
world  for  fruit-raising.  The  August  sun  had 
baked  the  soil  into  yellow  dust  which  covered 

112 


LAKE  CHELAN  TO  LYMAN  LAKE 

everything.  Arid  hillsides  without  a  leaf  of 
green  but  dotted  thickly  with  gray  sagebrush, 
eroded  valleys,  rocks  and  gullies  —  all  shone  a 
dusty  yellow  in  the  heat.  The  dust  penetrated 
everything.  Wherever  water  could  be  utilized 
were  orchards,  little  trees  planted  in  geometri- 
cal rows  and  only  waiting  the  touch  of  irriga- 
tion to  make  their  owners  wealthy  beyond 
dreams. 

The  lower  end  of  Lake  Chelan  was  sur- 
rounded by  these  bleak  hillsides,  desert  without 
the  great  spaces  of  the  desert.  Yet  unques- 
tionably, in  a  few  years  from  now,  these  bleak 
hillsides  will  be  orchard  land.  Only  the  lower 
part,  however,  is  bleak  —  only  an  end,  indeed. 
There  is  nothing  more  beautiful  and  impressive 
than  the  upper  part  of  that  strangely  deep  and 
quiet  lake  lying  at  the  foot  of  its  enormous 
cliffs. 

By  devious  stages  we  reached  the  head  of 
Lake  Chelan,  and  there  for  four  days  the  out- 
fitting went  on.  Horses  were  being  brought  in, 
saddles  fitted;  provisions  in  great  cases  were 
arriving.  To  outfit  a  party  of  our  size  for  two 

113 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

weeks  means  labor  and  generous  outlay.  And 
we  were  going  to  be  comfortable.  We  were 
willing  to  travel  hard  and  sleep  hard.  But  we 
meant  to  have  plenty  of  food.  I  think  we  may 
claim  the  unique  distinction  of  being  the  only 
people  who  ever  had  grapefruit  regularly  for 
breakfast  on  the  top  of  that  portion  of  the 
Cascade  Range. 

While  we  waited,  we  learned  something 
about  the  country.  It  is  volcanic  ash,  disinte- 
grated basalt,  this  great  fruit-country  to  the 
right  of  the  range.  And  three  things,  appar- 
ently, are  responsible  for  its  marvelous  fruit- 
growing properties.  First,  the  soil  itself,  which 
needs  only  water  to  prove  marvelously  fertile; 
second,  the  length  of  the  growing-season,  which 
around  Lake  Chelan  is  one  hundred  and  ninety- 
two  days  in  the  year.  And  this  just  south  of 
the  Canadian  border!  There  is  a  third  reason, 
too :  the  valleys  are  sheltered  from  frost.  Even 
if  a  frost  comes,  —  and  I  believe  it  is  almost 
unknown,  —  the  high  mountains  surrounding 
these  valleys  protect  the  blossoms  so  that  the 
frost  has  evaporated  before  the  sun  strikes  the 

114 


LAKE  CHELAN  TO  LYMAN  LAKE 

trees.  There  is  no  such  thing  known  as  a  kill- 
ing frost. 

But  it  is  irrigation  on  a  virgin  and  fertile  soil 
that  is  primarily  responsible.  They  run  the 
water  to  the  orchards  in  conduits,  and  then 
dig  little  trenches,  running  parallel  among  the 
trees.  Then  they  turn  it  on,  and  the  tree-roots 
are  bathed,  soaked.  And  out  of  the  desert 
spring  such  trees  of  laden  fruit  that  each 
branch  must  be  supported  by  wires! 

So  we  ate  such  apples  as  I  had  never 
dreamed  of,  and  waited.  Joe  got  his  films  to- 
gether. The  boys  practiced  shooting.  I  rested 
and  sharpened  lead-pencils.  Bob  had  found  a 
way  to  fold  his  soft  hat  into  what  he  fondly 
called  the  "Jennings  do,"  which  means  a  plait 
in  the  crown  to  shed  the  rain,  and  which  turned 
an  amiable  ensemble  into  something  savage  and 
extremely  flat  on  top.  The  Head  played 
croquet. 

And  then  into  our  complacency  came,  one 
night,  a  bit  of  tragedy. 

A  man  staggered  into  the  little  hotel  at  the 
head  of  the  lake,  carrying  another  man  on  his 

ii5 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

back.  He  had  carried  him  for  forty  hours,  low- 
ering him  down,  bit  by  bit,  from  that  moun- 
tain highland  where  he  had  been  hurt  —  forty 
hours  of  superhuman  effort  and  heart-breaking 
going,  over  cliffs  and  through  wilderness. 

The  injured  man  was  a  sheep-herder.  He  had 
cut  his  leg  with  his  wood-axe,  and  blood- 
poisoning  had  set  in.  I  do  not  know  the  rest  of 
that  story.  The  sheep-herder  was  taken  to  a 
hospital  the  next  day,  traveling  a  very  long 
way.  But  whether  he  traveled  still  farther,  to 
the  land  of  the  Great  Shepherd,  I  do  not  know. 
Only  this  I  do  know:  that  this  Western  coun- 
try I  love  is  full  of  such  stories,  and  of  such 
men  as  the  hero  of  this  one. 

At  last  we  were  ready.  Some  of  the  horses 
were  sent  by  boat  the  day  before,  for  this 
strange  lake  has  little  or  no  shore-line.  Granite 
mountains  slope  stark  and  sheer  to  the  water's 
edge,  and  drop  from  there  to  frightful  depths 
below.  There  are,  at  the  upper  end,  no  roads, 
no  trails  or  paths  that  border  it.  So  the  horses 
and  all  of  us  went  by  boat  to  the  mouth  of 
Railroad  Creek, —  so  called,  I  suppose,  because 

116 


LAKE  CHELAN  TO  LYMAN  LAKE 

the  nearest  railroad  is  more  than  forty  miles 
away,  —  up  which  led  the  trail  to  the  great 
unknown.  All  around  and  above  us  were  the 
cliffs,  towering  seven  thousand  feet  over  the 
lake.  And  beyond  those  cliffs  lay  adventure. 

For  it  was  adventure.  Even  Dan  Devore, 
experienced  mountaineer  and  guide  that  he 
was,  had  only  been  to  Cascade  Pass  once,  and 
that  was  sixteen  years  before.  He  had  never 
been  across  the  divide.  "  Silent  Lawrie  "  Linds- 
ley,  the  naturalist,  had  been  only  part-way 
down  the  Agnes  Creek  Valley,  which  we  in- 
tended to  follow.  Only  in  a  general  way  had 
we  any  itinerary  at  all. 

Now  a  National  Forest  is  a  happy  hunting- 
ground.  Whereas  in  the  National  Parks  game 
is  faithfully  preserved,  hunting  is  permitted 
in  the  forests.  To  this  end,  we  took  with  us 
a  complete  arsenal.  The  naturalist  carried  a 
Colt's  revolver;  the  Big  Boy  had  a  twelve- 
gauge  hammerless,  called  a  "  howitzer/ '  We 
had  two  twenty-four-gauge  shotguns  in  case  we 
met  an  elephant  or  anything  similarly  large 
and  heavy,  and  the  Little  Boy  proudly  carried, 

117 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

strapped  to  his  saddle,  a  twenty-two  high- 
power  rifle,  shooting  a  steel-jacketed,  soft-nose 
bullet,  an  express-rifle  of  high  velocity  and 
great  alarm  to  mothers.  In  addition  to  this,  we 
had  a  Savage  repeater  and  two  Winchester 
thirties,  and  the  Forest  Supervisor  carried  his 
own  Winchester  thirty-eight.  We  were  entirely 
prepared  to  meet  the  whole  German  army. 

It  is  rather  sad  to  relate  that,  with  all  this 
preparation,  we  killed  nothing  whatever.  Al- 
though it  is  not  true  that,  on  the  day  we  en- 
countered a  large  bear,  and  the  three  junior 
members  of  the  family  were  allowed  to  turn 
the  artillery  loose  on  him,  at  the  end  of  the  fir- 
ing the  bear  pulled  out  a  flag  and  waved  it, 
thinking  it  was  the  Fourth  of  July. 

As  we  started,  that  August  midday,  for  the 
long,  dusty  ride  up  the  Railroad  Creek  Trail,  I 
am  sure  that  the  three  junior  Rineharts  had 
nothing  less  in  mind  than  two  or  three  bear- 
skins apiece  for  school  bedrooms.  They  de- 
served better  luck  than  they  had.  Night  after 
night,  sitting  in  the  comparative  safety  of  the 
camp-fire,  I  have  seen  my  three  sons,  the  Big, 

118 


LAKE  CHELAN  TO  LYMAN  LAKE 

the  Middle,  and  the  Little  Boy,  starting  off, 
armed  to  the  teeth  with  deadly  weapons,  to 
sleep  out  under  the  stars  and  catch  the  first  un- 
wary bear  on  his  way  to  breakfast  in  the  morn- 
ing. 

Morning  after  morning,  I  have  sat  break- 
fastless  and  shaken  until  the  weary  procession 
of  young  America  toiled  into  camp,  hungry 
and  bearless,  but,  thank  Heaven,  whole  of  skin 
save  where  mosquitoes  and  black  flies  had 
taken  their  toll  of  them.  They  would  trudge 
five  miles,  sleep  three  hours,  hunt,  walk  five 
miles  back,  and  then  ride  all  day. 

The  first  day  was  the  least  pleasant.  We 
were  still  in  the  Railroad  Creek  Valley;  the 
trail  was  dusty;  packs  slipped  on  the  sweating 
horses  and  had  to  be  replaced.  The  bucking 
horse  of  the  outfit  had,  as  usual,  been  given  the 
eggs,  and,  burying  his  head  between  his  fore 
legs,  threw  off  about  a  million  dollars'  worth 
before  he  had  been  on  the  trail  an  hour. 

On  that  first  part  of  the  trip,  we  had  three 
dogs  with  us  —  Chubb  and  Doc,  as  well  as 

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TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

Whiskers.  They  ran  in  the  dust  with  their 
tongues  out,  and  lay  panting  under  bushes  at 
each  stop.  Here  and  there  we  found  the  track 
of  sheep  driven  into  the  mountain  to  graze. 
For  a  hundred  or  two  hundred  feet  in  width,  it 
was  eaten  completely  clean,  for  sheep  have  a 
way  of  tearing  up  even  the  roots  of  the  grass  so 
that  nothing  green  lives  behind  them.  They 
carry  blight  into  a  country  like  this. 

Then,  at  last,  we  found  the  first  arrow  of 
the  journey,  and  turned  off  the  trail  to  camp. 

On  that  first  evening,  the  arrow  landed  us 
in  a  great  spruce  grove  where  the  trees  aver- 
aged a  hundred  and  twenty-five  feet  in  height. 
Below,  the  ground  was  cleared  and  level  and 
covered  with  fine  moss.  The  great  gray  trunks 
rosetoGothic  archesof  green.  Itwas  a  churchly 
place.  And  running  through  it  were  little 
streams  living  with  trout. 

And  in  this  saintly  spot,  quiet  and  peaceful, 
its  only  noise  the  babbling  of  little  rivers,  dwelt 
billions  on  billions  of  mosquitoes  that  were  for 
the  first  time  learning  the  delights  of  the  hu- 
man frame  as  food. 

120 


LAKE  CHELAN  TO  LYMAN  LAKE 

There  was  no  getting  away  from  them.  Open 
our  mouths  and  we  inhaled  them.  They  hung 
in  dense  clouds  about  us  and  fought  over  the 
best  locations.  They  held  loud  and  noisy  con- 
versations about  us,  and  got  in  our  ears  and 
up  our  nostrils  and  into  our  coffee.  They  went 
trout-fishing  with  us  and  put  up  the  tents  with 
us;  dined  with  us  and  on  us.  But  they  let  us 
alone  at  night. 

It  is  a  curious  thing  about  the  mountain 
mosquito  as  I  know  him.  He  is  a  lazy  insect. 
He  retires  at  sundown  and  does  not  begin  to 
get  in  any  active  work  until  eight  o'clock  the 
following  morning.   He  keeps  union  hours. 

Something  of  this  we  had  anticipated,  and 
I  had  ordered  mosquito-netting,  to  be  worn  as 
veils.  When  it  was  unrolled,  it  proved  to  be  a 
brilliant  scarlet,  a  scarlet  which  faded  in  hot 
weather  on  to  necks  and  faces  and  turned  us 
suddenly  red  and  hideous. 

Although  it  was  late  in  the  afternoon  when 
we  reached  that  first  camp,  Camp  Romany,  two 
or  three  of  us  caught  more  than  a  hundred 
trout  before  sundown.   We  should  have  done 

121 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

better  had  it  not  been  necessary  to  stop  and 
scratch  every  thirty  seconds. 

That  night,  the  Woodsman  built  a  great 
bonfire.  We  huddled  about  it,  glad  of  its 
warmth,  for  although  the  days  were  hot,  the 
nights,  with  the  wind  from  the  snow-covered 
peaks  overhead,  were  very  cold.  The  tall,  un- 
branching  gray  spruce-trunks  rose  round  it  like 
the  pillars  of  a  colonnade.  The  forester  blew 
up  his  air  bed.  In  front  of  the  supper-fire,  the 
shadowy  figures  of  the  cooks  moved  back  and 
forward.  From  a  near-by  glacier  came  an  oc- 
casional crack,  followed  by  a  roar  which  told 
of  ice  dropping  into  cavernous  depths  below. 
The  Little  Boy  cleaned  his  gun  and  dreamed 
of  mighty  exploits. 

We  rested  all  the  next  day  at  Camp  Rom- 
any—  rested  and  fished,  while  three  of  the 
more  adventurous  spirits  climbed  a  near-by 
mountain.  Late  in  the  afternoon  they  rode  in, 
bringing  in  their  midst  Joe,  who  had,  at  the 
risk  of  his  life,  slid  a  distance  which  varied  in 
the  reports  from  one  hundred  yards  to  a  mile 
and  a  half  down  a  snow-field,  and  had  hung 

122 


LAKE  CHELAN  TO  LYMAN  LAKE 

fastened  on  the  brink  of  eternity  until  he  was 
rescued. 

Very  white  was  Joe  that  evening,  white  and 
bruised.  It  was  twenty-four  hours  before  he 
began  to  regret  that  the  camera  had  not  been 
turned  on  him  at  the  time. 

Not  until  we  left  Camp  Romany  did  we  feel 
that  we  were  really  off  for  the  trip.  And  yet 
that  first  day  out  from  Romany  was  not  agree- 
able going.  The  trail  was  poor,  although  there 
came  a  time  when  we  looked  back  on  it  as 
superlative.  The  sun  was  hot,  and  there  was 
no  shade.  Years  ago,  prospectors  hunting  for 
minerals  had  started  forest-fires  to  level  the 
ridges.  The  result  was  the  burning-over  of  per- 
haps a  hundred  square  miles  of  magnificent 
forest.  The  second  growth  which  has  come  up 
is  scrubby,  a  wilderness  of  young  trees  and 
chaparral,  through  which  progress  was  difficult 
and  uninteresting. 

Up  the  bottom  of  the  great  glacier-basin 
toward  the  mountain  at  its  head,  we  made  our 
slow  and  painful  way.  More  dust,  more  mos- 
quitoes. Even  the  beauty  of  the  snow-capped 

123 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

peaks  overhead  could  not  atone  for  the  ugliness 
of  that  destroyed  region.  Yet,  although  it  was 
not  lovely,  it  was  vastly  impressive.  Literally, 
hundreds  of  waterfalls  cascaded  down  the 
mountain  wall  from  hidden  lakes  and  glaciers 
above,  and  towering  before  us  was  the  moun- 
tain wall  which  we  were  to  climb  later  that  day. 

We  had  seen  no  human  creature  since  leav- 
ing the  lake,  but  as  we  halted  for  luncheon  by 
a  steep  little  river,  we  suddenly  found  that  we 
were  not  alone.  Standing  beside  the  trail  was 
an  Italian  bandit  with  a  knife  two  feet  long  in 
his  hands. 

Ha!  Come  adventure!  Come  romance! 
Come  rifles  and  pistols  and  all  the  arsenal,  in- 
cluding the  Little  Boy,  with  pure  joy  writ  large 
over  him!  A  bandit,  armed  to  the  teeth! 

But  this  is  a  disappointing  world.  He  was 
the  cook  from  a  mine  —  strange,  the  way  we 
met  cooks,  floating  around  loose  in  a  world 
that  seems  to  be  growing  gradually  cookless. 
And  he  carried  with  him  his  knife  and  his 
bread-pan,  which  was,  even  then,  hanging  to  a 
branch  of  a  tree. 

124 


LAKE  CHELAN  TO  LYMAN  LAKE 

We  fed  him,  and  he  offered  to  sing.  The 
Optimist  nudged  me. 

"Now,  listen/'  he  said;  " these  fellows  can 
sing.  Be  quiet,  everybody !" 

The  bandit  twisted  up  his  mustachios,  smiled 
beatifically,  and  took  up  a  position  in  the  trail, 
feet  apart,  eyes  upturned. 

And  then  —  he  stopped. 

"I  start  a  leetle  high,"  he  said;  "I  start 
again." 

So  he  started  again,  and  the  woods  receded 
from  around  us,  and  the  rushing  of  the  river 
died  away,  and  nothing  was  heard  in  that 
lonely  valley  but  the  most  hideous  sounds  that 
ever  broke  a  primeval  silence  into  rags  and 
tatters. 

When,  at  last,  he  stopped,  we  got  on  our 
horses  and  rode  on,  a  bitter  and  disillusioned 
party  of  adventurers  whose  first  bubble  of  en- 
thusiasm had  been  pricked. 

It  was  four  o'clock  when  we  began  the  ascent 
of  the  switchback  at  the  top  of  the  valley.  Up 
and  up  we  went,  dismounting  here  and  there, 
going  slowly  but  eagerly.   For,  once  over  the 

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TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

wall,  we  were  beyond  the  reach  of  civilization. 
So  strange  a  thing  is  the  human  mind!  We 
who  were  for  most  of  the  year  most  civilized, 
most  dependent  on  our  kind  and  the  comforts 
it  has  wrought  out  of  a  primitive  world,  now 
we  were  savagely  resentful  of  it.  We  wanted 
neither  men  nor  houses.  Stirring  in  us  had 
commenced  that  primeval  call  that  comes  to 
all  now  and  then,  the  longing  to  be  alone  with 
Mother  Earth,  savage,  tender,  calm  old  Mother 
Earth. 

And  yet  we  were  still  in  touch  with  the 
world.  For  even  here  man  had  intruded. 
Hanging  to  the  cliff  were  the  few  buildings  of 
a  small  mine  which  sends  out  its  ore  by  pack- 
pony.  I  had  already  begun  to  feel  the  aloofness 
of  the  quiet  places,  so  it  was  rather  disconcert- 
ing to  have  a  miner  with  a  patch  over  one  eye 
come  to  the  doorway  of  one  of  the  buildings 
and  remark  that  he  had  read  some  of  my  pol- 
itical articles  and  agreed  with  them  most 
thoroughly. 

That  was  a  long  day.  We  traveled  from  early 
morning  until  long  after  late  sundown.  Up  the 

126 


COPYRIGHT,    I916,    BY   L.    D.    LINDSLEY 

Looking  out  of  ice-cave,  Lyma?i  Glacier 


LAKE  CHELAN  TO  LYMAN  LAKE 

switchback  to  a  green  plateau  we  went,  meet- 
ing our  first  ice  there,  and  here  again  that  mir- 
acle of  the  mountains,  meadow  flowers  and 
snow  side  by  side. 

Far  behind  us  strung  the  pack-outfit,  plod- 
ding doggedly  along.  From  the  rim  we  could 
look  back  down  that  fire-swept  valley  toward 
Heart  Lake  and  the  camp  we  had  left.  But 
there  was  little  time  for  looking  back.  Some- 
where ahead  was  a  brawling  river  descending 
in  great  leaps  from  Lyman  Lake,  which  lay  in 
a  basin  above  and  beyond.  Our  camp,  that 
night,  was  to  be  on  the  shore  of  Lyman  Lake, 
at  the  foot  of  Lyman  Glacier.  And  we  had  still 
far  to  go. 

Mr.  Hilligoss  met  us  on  the  trail.  He  had 
found  a  camp-site  by  the  lake  and  had  seen  a 
bear  and  a  deer.  There  were  wild  ducks  also. 

Now  and  then  there  are  scenes  in  the  moun- 
tains that  defy  the  written  word.  The  view 
from  Cloudy  Pass  is  one;  the  outlook  from 
Cascade  Pass  is  another.  But  for  sheer  love- 
liness there  are  few  things  that  surpass  Ly- 
man Lake  at  sunset,  its  great  glacier  turned 

127 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

to  pink,  the  towering  granite  cliffs  which  sur- 
round it  dark  purple  below,  bright  rose  at  the 
summits.  And  lying  there,  still  with  the  still- 
ness of  the  ages,  the  quiet  lake. 

There  was,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  nothing  to 
disturb  its  quiet.  Not  a  fish,  so  far  as  we  could 
discover,  lived  in  its  opalescent  water,  cloudy 
as  is  all  glacial  water.  It  is  only  good  to  look 
at,  is  Lyman  Lake,  and  there  are  no  people  to 
look  at  it. 

Set  in  its  encircling,  snow-covered  moun- 
tains, it  lies  fifty-five  hundred  feet  above  sea- 
level.  We  had  come  up  in  two  days  from  eleven 
hundred  feet,  a  considerable  climb.  That  night, 
for  the  first  time,  we  saw  the  northern  lights 
—  at  first,  one  band  like  a  cold  finger  set  across 
the  sky,  then  others,  shooting  ribbons  of  cold 
fire,  now  bright,  now  dim,  covering  the  north- 
ern horizon  and  throwing  into  silhouette  the 
peaks  over  our  heads. 


XII 

CLOUDY  PASS  AND  THE  AGNES  CREEK 
VALLEY 

I  think  I  have  said  that  one  of  the  purposes  of 
our  expedition  was  to  hunt.  We  were  to  spend 
a  day  or  two  at  Lyman  Lake,  and  the  sports- 
men were  busy  by  the  camp-fire  that  even- 
ing, getting  rifles  and  shotguns  in  order  and 
preparing  fishing-tackle. 

At  dawn  the  next  morning,  which  was  at  four 
o'clock,  one  of  the  packers  roused  the  Big  Boy 
with  the  information  that  there  were  wild 
ducks  on  the  lake.  He  was  wakened  with  ex- 
treme difficulty,  put  on  his  bedroom  slippers, 
picked  up  his  shotgun,  and,  still  in  his  sleeping- 
garments,  walked  some  ten  feet  from  the  mouth 
of  his  tent.  There  he  yawned,  discharged  both 
barrels  of  his  gun  in  the  general  direction  of  the 
ducks,  yawned  again,  and  went  back  to  bed. 

I  myself  went  on  a  hunting-excursion  on  the 
second  day  at  Lyman  Lake.   Now,  theoreti- 

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TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

cally,  I  am  a  mighty  hunter.  I  have  always  ex- 
pected to  shoot  something  worth  while  and 
be  photographed  with  my  foot  on  it,  and  a 
11  bearer* '  —  whatever  that  may  be  —  holding 
my  gun  in  the  background.  So  when  Mr.  Fred 
proposed  an  early  start  and  a  search  along  the 
side  of  Chiwawa  Mountain  for  anything  from 
sheep  to  goats,  including  a  grizzly  if  possible, 
my  imagination  was  roused.  So  jealous  were 
we  that  the  first  game  should  be  ours  that 
the  party  was  kept  a  profound  secret.  Mr. 
Fred  and  Mrs.  Fred,  the  Head,  and  I  planned 
it  ourselves. 

We  would  rise  early,  and,  armed  to  the  teeth, 
would  stalk  the  skulking  bear  to  his  den. 

Rising  early  is  also  a  theory  of  mine.  I  ap- 
prove of  it.  But  I  do  not  consider  it  rising 
early  to  get  up  at  three  o'clock  in  the  morning. 
Three  o'clock  in  the  morning  is  late  at  night. 
The  moon  was  still  up.  It  was  frightfully  cold. 
My  shoes  were  damp  and  refused  to  go  on.  I 
could  not  find  any  hairpins.  And  I  recalled  a 
number  of  stories  of  the  extreme  disagreeable- 
ness  of  bears  when  not  shot  in  a  vital  spot. 

130 


CLOUDY  PASS 

With  all  our  hurry,  it  was  four  o'clock  when 
we  were  ready  to  start.  No  sun  was  in  sight, 
but  already  a  faint  rose-colored  tint  was  on 
the  tops  of  the  mountains.  Whiskers  raised  a 
sleepy  head  and  looked  at  us  from  Dan's  bed. 
We  tiptoed  through  the  camp  and  started. 

We  climbed.  Then  we  climbed  some  more. 
Then  we  kept  on  climbing.  Mr.  Fred  led  the 
way.  He  had  the  energy  of  a  high-powered  car 
and  the  hopefulness  of  a  pacifist.  From  ledge 
to  ledge  he  scrambled,  turning  now  and  then 
to  wave  an  encouraging  hand.  It  was  not  long 
before  I  ceased  to  have  strength  to  wave  back. 
Hours  went  on.  Five  hundred  feet,  one  thou- 
sand feet,  fifteen  hundred  feet  above  the  lake. 
I  confided  to  the  Head,  between  gasps,  that  I 
was  dying.  We  had  seen  no  living  thing;  we  con- 
tinued to  see  no  living  thing.  Two  thousand  feet, 
twenty-five  hundred  feet.  There  was  not  enough 
air  in  the  world  to  fill  my  collapsed  lungs. 

Once  Mr.  Fred  found  a  track,  and  scurried 
off  in  a  new  direction.  Still  no  result.  The  sun 
was  up  by  that  time,  and  I  judged  that  it  was 
about  noon.   It  was  only  six- thirty. 

131 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

A  sort  of  desperation  took  possession  of  us 
all.  We  would  keep  up  with  Mr.  Fred  or  die 
trying.  And  then,  suddenly,  we  were  on  the 
very  roof  of  the  world,  on  the  top  of  Cloudy 
Pass.  All  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth  lay 
stretched  out  around  us,  and  all  the  kingdoms 
of  the  earth  were  empty. 

Now,  the  usual  way  to  climb  Cloudy  Pass 
is  to  take  a  good  businesslike  horse  and  sit  on 
his  back.  Then,  by  devious  and  circuitous 
routes,  with  frequent  rests,  the  horse  takes 
you  up.  When  there  is  a  place  the  horse  can- 
not manage,  you  get  off  and  hold  his  tail,  and 
he  pulls  you.  Even  at  that,  it  is  a  long  bus- 
iness and  a  painful  one.  But  it  is  better  — 
oh,  far,  far  better!  —  than  the  way  we  had 
taken.  ■$, 

Have  you  ever  reached  a  point  where  you 
fix  your  starting  eyes  on  a  shrub  or  a  rock  ten 
feet  ahead  and  struggle  for  it?  And,  having 
achieved  it,  fix  on  another  five  feet  farther  on, 
and  almost  fail  to  get  it?  Because,  if  you  have 
not,  you  know  nothing  of  this  agony  of  tear- 
ing lungs  and  hammering  heart  and  throbbing 

132 


CLOUDY  PASS 

muscles  that  is  the  mountain-climber's  price 
for  achievement. 

And  then,  after  all,  while  resting  on  the  top 
of  the  world  with  our  feet  hanging  over,  dis- 
cussing dilated  hearts,  because  I  knew  mine 
would  never  go  back  to  normal,  to  see  a 
ptarmigan,  and  have  Mr.  Fred  miss  it  because 
he  wanted  to  shoot  its  head  neatly  off! 

Strange  birds,  those  ptarmigan.  Quite  fear- 
less of  man,  because  they  know  him  not  or 
his  evil  works,  on  alarm  they  have  the  faculty 
of  almost  instantly  obliterating  themselves.  I 
have  seen  a  mother  bird  and  her  babies,  on  an 
alarm,  so  hide  themselves  on  a  bare  mountain- 
side that  not  so  much  as  a  bit  of  feather  could 
be  seen.  But  unless  frightened,  they  will 
wander  almost  under  the  hunter's  feet. 

I  dare  say  they  do  not  know  how  very  de- 
licious they  are,  especially  after  a  diet  of  salt 
meat. 

As  we  sat  panting  on  Cloudy  Pass,  the  sun 
rose  over  the  cliff  of  the  great  granite  bowl. 
The  peaks  turned  from  red  to  yellow.  It  was 
absolutely  silent.  No  trees  rustled  in  the  morn- 

133 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

ing  air.  There  were  no  trees.  Only,  here  and 
there,  a  few  stunted  evergreens,  two  or  three 
feet  high,  had  rooted  on  the  rock  and  clung 
there,  gnarled  and  twisted  from  their  winter 
struggles. 

Ears  that  had  grown  tired  of  the  noises  of 
cities  grew  rested.  But  our  ears  were  more 
rested  than  our  bodies. 

I  have  always  believed  that  it  is  easier  to  go 
downhill  than  to  go  up.  This  is  not  true.  I  say 
it  with  the  deepest  earnestness.  After  the  first 
five  hundred  feet  of  descent,  progress  down 
became  agonizing.  The  something  that  had 
gone  wrong  with  my  knees  became  terribly 
wrong;  they  showed  a  tendency  to  bend  back- 
ward; they  shook  and  quivered. 

The  last  mile  of  that  four-mile  descent  was 
one  of  the  most  dreadful  experiences  of  my  life. 
A  broken  thing,  I  crept  into  camp  and  ten- 
dered mute  apologies  to  Budweiser,  my  horse, 
called  familiarly  "  Buddy."  (Although  he  was 
not  the  sort  of  horse  one  really  became  familiar 
with.) 

The  remainder  of  that  day,  Mrs.  Fred  and 
134 


CLOUDY  PASS 

I  lay  under  a  mosquito-canopy,  played  soli- 
taire, and  rested  our  aching  bodies.  The  Forest 
Supervisor  climbed  Lyman  Glacier.  The  Head 
and  the  Little  Boy  made  the  circuit  of  the  lake, 
and  had  to  be  roped  across  the  rushing  river 
which  is  its  outlet.  And  the  horses  rested  for 
the  real  hardship  of  the  trip,  which  was  about 
to  commence. 

One  thing  should  be  a  part  of  the  equipment 
of  every  one  who  intends  to  camp  in  the  moun- 
tains near  the  snow-fields.  This  is  a  mosquito- 
tent.  Ours  was  brought  by  that  experienced 
woodsman  and  mountaineer,  Mr.  Hilligoss, 
and  was  made  with  a  light-muslin  top  three 
feet  long  by  the  width  of  double- width  muslin. 
To  this  was  sewed  sides  of  cheese-cloth,  with 
double  seams  and  reinforced  corners.  At  the 
bottom  it  had  an  extra  piece  of  netting  two  feet 
wide,  to  prevent  the  insects  from  crawling 
under.      *  j 

Erecting  such  a  shelter  is  very  simple.  Four 
stakes,  five  feet  high,  were  driven  into  the 
ground  and  the  mosquito-canopy  simply  hung 
over  them. 

135 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

We  had  no  face-masks,  except  the  red  net- 
ting, but,  for  such  a  trip,  a  mask  is  simple  to 
make  and  occasionally  most  acceptable.  The 
best  one  I  know  —  and  it,  too,  is  the  Woods- 
man's invention  —  consists  of  a  four-inch 
band  of  wire  netting;  above  it,  whipped  on,  a 
foot  of  light  muslin  to  be  tied  round  the  hat, 
and,  below,  a  border  of  cheese-cloth  two  feet 
deep,  with  a  rubber  band.  Such  a  mask  does 
not  stick  to  the  face.  Through  the  wire  net- 
ting, it  is  possible  to  shoot  with  accuracy.  The 
rubber  band  round  the  neck  allows  it  to  be 
lifted  with  ease. 

I  do  not  wish  to  give  the  impression  that 
there  were  mosquitoes  everywhere.  But  when 
there  were  mosquitoes,  there  was  nothing 
clandestine  about  it. 

The  next  day  we  crossed  Cloudy  Pass  and 
started  down  the  Agnes  Creek  Valley.  It  was 
to  be  a  forced  march  of  twenty-five  miles  over 
a  trail  which  no  one  was  sure  existed.  There 
had,  at  one  time,  been  a  trail,  but  avalanches 
have  a  way,  in  these  mountain  valleys,  of  de- 
stroying all  landmarks,  and  rock-slides  come 

136 


THE  AGNES  CREEK  VALLEY 

down  from  the  great  cliffs,  fill  creek-beds,  and 
form  swamps.  Whether  we  could  get  down 
at  all  or  not  was  a  question.  To  the  eternal 
credit  of  our  guides,  we  made  it.  For  the  up- 
per five  miles  below  Cloudy  Pass  it  was  touch 
and  go.  Even  with  the  sharp  hatchet  of  the 
Woodsman  ahead,  with  his  blazes  on  the 
trees  where  the  trail  had  been  obliterated,  it 
was  the  hardest  kind  of  going. 

Here  were  ditches  that  the  horses  leaped; 
here  were  rushing  streams  where  they  could 
hardly  keep  their  footing.  Again,  a  long  mile 
or  two  of  swamp  and  almost  impenetrable 
jungle,  where  only  the  Woodsman's  axe-marks 
gave  us  courage  to  go  on.  We  were  mired  at 
times,  and  again  there  were  long  stretches  over 
rock-slides,  where  the  horses  scrambled  like 
cats. 

But  with  every  mile  there  came  a  sense  of 
exhilaration.   We  were  making  progress. 

There  was  little  or  no  life  to  be  seen.  The 
Woodsman,  going  ahead  of  us,  encountered  a 
brown  bear  reaching  up  for  a  cluster  of  salmon- 
berries.   He  ambled  away,  quite  unconcerned, 

137 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

and  happily  ignorant  of  that  desperate  trio  of 
junior  Rineharts,  bearing  down  on  him  with 
almost  the  entire  contents  of  the  best  gun 
shop  in  Spokane. 

It  should  have  been  a  great  place  for  bears, 
that  Agnes  Creek  Valley.  There  were  ripe 
huckleberries,  service-berries,  salmon-  and 
manzanita-berries.  There  were  plenty  of  places 
where,  if  I  had  been  a  bear,  I  should  have  been 
entirely  happy  —  caves  and  great  rocks,  and 
good,  cold  water.  And  I  believe  they  were 
there.  But  thirty-one  horses  and  a  sort  of  fam- 
ily tendency  to  see  if  there  is  an  echo  anywhere 
about,  and  such  loud  inquiries  as,  "Are  you  all 
right,  mother ?"  and  "Who  the  dickens  has 
any  matches ?"  —  these  things  are  fatal  to  see- 
ing wild  life. 

Indeed,  the  next  time  I  am  overcome  by  one 
of  my  mad  desires  to  see  a  bear,  I  shall  go  to 
the  zoo. 

It  was  fifteen  years,  I  believe,  since  Dan 
Devore  had  seen  the  Agnes  Creek  Valley.  From 
the  condition  of  the  trail,  I  am  inclined  to 
think  that  Dan  was  the  last  man  who  had  ever 

138 


THE  AGNES  CREEK  VALLEY 

used  it.  And  such  a  wonderland  as  it  is!  Such 
marvels  of  flowers  as  we  descended,  such  wild 
tiger-lilies  and  columbines  and  Mariposa  lilies! 
What  berries  and  queen's-cup  and  chalice-cup 
and  bird's-bill!  There  was  trillium,  too,  al- 
though it  was  not  in  bloom,  and  devils-club,  a 
plant  which  stings  and  sets  up  a  painful  swell- 
ing. There  were  yew  trees,  those  trees  which 
the  Indians  use  for  making  their  bows,  wild 
white  rhododendron  and  spirea,  cottonwood, 
white  pine,  hemlock,  Douglas  spruce,  and 
white  fir.  Everywhere  there  was  mountain- 
ash,  the  berries  beloved  of  bears.  And  high  up 
on  the  mountain  there  was  always  heather, 
beautiful  to  look  at  but  slippery,  uncertain 
footing  for  horse  and  man. 

Twenty-five  miles,  broken  with  canter  and 
trot,  is  not  more  than  I  have  frequently  taken 
on  a  brisk  sunny  morning  at  home.  But 
twenty-five  miles  at  a  slow  walk,  now  in  a 
creek-bed,  now  on  the  edge  of  a  cliff,  is  a  differ- 
ent matter.  The  last  five  miles  of  the  Agnes 
Creek  trip  were  a  long  despair.  We  found  and 
located  new  muscles  that  the  anatomists  have 

139 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

overlooked.  —  A  really  first-class  anatomist 
ought  never  to  make  a  chart  without  first 
climbing  a  high  mountain  and  riding  all  day  on 
the  creature  alluded  to  in  this  song  of  Bob's, 
which  gained  a  certain  popularity  among  the 
male  members  of  the  party. 

"  A  sailor's  life  is  bold  and  free. 
He  lives  upon  the  bright  blue  sea. 

He  has  to  work  like  h ,  of  course, 

But  he  does  n't  have  to  ride  on  a  darned  old 
horse." 

It  was  dark  when  we  reached  our  camp- 
ground at  the  foot  of  the  valley.  A  hundred 
feet  below,  in  a  gorge,  ran  the  Stehekin  River, 
a  noisy  and  turbulent  stream  full  of  trout.  We 
groped  through  the  darkness  for  our  tents  that 
night  and  fell  into  bed  more  dead  than  alive. 
But  at  three  o'clock  the  next  morning,  the 
junior  Rineharts,  following  Mr.  Fred,  were  off 
for  bear,  reappearing  at  ten,  after  breakfast 
was  over,  with  an  excited  story  of  having 
seen  one  very  close  but  having  unaccountably 
missed  it. 

There  was  no  water  for  the  horses  at  camp 
140 


THE  AGNES  CREEK  VALLEY 

that  night,  and  none  for  them  in  the  morning. 
There  was  no  way  to  get  them  down  to  the 
river,  and  the  poor  animals  were  almost  des- 
perate with  thirst.  They  were  having  little 
enough  to  eat  even  then,  at  the  beginning  of 
the  trip,  and  it  was  hard  to  see  them  without 
water,  too. 


XIII 

CANON  FISHING  AND  A  TELEGRAM 

It  was  eleven  o'clock  the  next  morning  before 
I  led  Buddy  —  I  had  abandoned  "Budweiser" 
in  view  of  the  drought  —  into  a  mountain 
stream  and  let  him  drink.  He  would  have  rolled 
in  it,  too,  but  I  was  on  his  back  and  I  fiercely 
restrained  him. 

The  next  day  was  a  comparatively  short  trip. 
There  was  a  trapper's  cabin  at  the  fork  of 
Bridge  Creek  in  the  Stehekin  River.  There  we 
were  to  spend  the  night  before  starting  on  our 
way  to  Cascade  Pass.  As  it  turned  out,  we 
spent  two  days  there.  There  was  a  little  grass 
for  the  horses,  and  we  learned  of  a  canon,  some 
five  or  six  miles  off  our  trail,  which  was  reported 
as  full  of  fish. 

The  most  ardent  of  us  went  there  the  next 
day  —  Mr.  Hilligoss,  Weaver,  and  "Silent 
Lawrie"  and  the  Freds  and  Bob  and  the  Big 
Boy  and  the  Little  Boy  and  Joe.  And,  with- 
out expecting  it,  we  happened  on  adventure. 

142 


CANON  FISHING 

Have  you  ever  climbed  down  a  canon  with 
rocky  sides,  a  straight  and  precipitous  five  hun- 
dred feet,  clinging  with  your  finger  nails  to  any 
bit  of  green  that  grows  from  the  cliff,  and  to 
footholds  made  by  an  axe,  and  carrying  a  fly- 
book  and  a  trout-rod  which  is  an  infinitely 
precious  trout-rod?  Also,  a  share  of  the  mid- 
day lunch  and  twenty  pounds  more  weight 
than  you  ought  to  have  by  the  beauty-scale? 
Because,  unless  you  have,  you  will  never  un- 
derstand that  trip. 

It  was  a  series  of  wild  drops,  of  blood-cur- 
dling escapes,  of  slips  and  recoveries,  of  bruises 
and  abrasions.  But  at  last  we  made  it,  and 
there  was  the  river! 

I  have  still  in  mind  a  deep  pool  where  the 
water,  rushing  at  tremendous  speed  over  a 
rocky  ledge,  fell  perhaps  fifteen  feet.  I  had 
fixed  my  eyes  on  that  pool  early  in  the  day,  but 
it  seemed  impossible  of  access.  To  reach  it  it 
was  necessary  again  to  scale  a  part  of  the  cliff, 
and,  clinging  to  its  face,  to  work  one's  way 
round  along  a  ledge  perhaps  three  inches  wide. 
When  I  had  once  made  it,  with  the  aid  of 

143 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

friendly  hands  and  a  leather  belt,  by  which  I 
was  lowered,  I  knew  one  thing  —  knew  it  inev- 
itably. I  was  there  for  life.  Nothing  would 
ever  take  me  back  over  that  ledge. 

However,  I  was  there,  and  there  was  no  use 
wasting  time.  For  there  were  fish  there.  Now 
and  then  they  jumped.  But  they  did  not  take 
the  fly.  The  water  seethed  and  boiled,  and  I 
stood  still  and  fished,  because  a  slip  on  that 
spray-covered  ledge  and  I  was  gone,  to  be 
washed  down  to  Lake  Chelan,  and  lie  below 
sea-level  in  the  Cascade  Mountains.  Which 
might  be  a  glorious  sort  of  tomb,  but  it  did  not 
appeal  to  me. 

I  tried  different  flies  with  no  result.  At  last, 
with  a  weighted  line  and  a  fish's  eye,  I  got  my 
first  fish  —  the  best  of  the  day,  and  from  that 
time  on  I  forgot  the  danger. 

Some  day,  armed  with  every  enticement 
known  to  the  fisherman,  I  am  going  back  to 
that  river.  For  there,  under  a  log,  lurks  the 
wiliest  trout  I  have  ever  encountered.  In  full 
view  he  stayed  during  the  entire  time  of  my 
sojourn.    He  came  up  to  the  fly,  leaped  over  it, 

144 


Stream  fishing 


CANON  FISHING 

made  faces  at  it.  Then  he  would  look  up  at  me 
scornfully. 

"Old  tricks,"  he  seemed  to  say.  "Old  stuff 
—  not  good  enough."  I  dare  say  he  is  still 
there. 

Late  in  the  day,  we  got  out  of  that  canon. 
Got  out  at  infinite  peril  and  fatigue,  climbed, 
struggled,  stumbled,  held  on,  pulled.  I  slipped 
once  and  had  a  bad  knee  for  six  weeks.  Never 
once  did  I  dare  to  look  back  and  down.  It  was 
always  up,  and  the  top  was  always  receding. 
And  when  we  reached  camp,  the  Head,  who 
had  been  on  an  excursion  of  his  own,  refused  to 
be  thrilled,  and  spent  the  evening  telling  how 
he  had  been  climbing  over  the  top  of  the  world 
on  his  hands  and  knees.  In  sheer  scorn,  we  let 
him  babble. 

But  my  hat  is  off  to  him,  after  all,  for  he  had 
ready  for  us,  and  swears  to  this  day  to  its  truth, 
the  best  fish-story  of  the  trip. 

Lying  on  the  top  of  one  of  our  packing-cases 
was  a  great  bull-trout.  Now  a  bull-trout  has 
teeth,  and  held  in  a  vise-like  grip  in  the  teeth 
of  this  one  was  a  smaller  trout.   In  the  mouth 

145 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

of  the  small  trout  was  a  gray-and-black  fly. 
The  Head  maintained  that  he  had  hooked  the 
small  fish  and  was  about  to  draw  it  to  shore 
when  the  bull-trout  leaped  out  of  the  water, 
caught  the  small  fish,  and  held  on  grimly.  The 
Head  thereupon  had  landed  them  both. 

In  proof  of  this,  as  I  have  said,  he  had  the 
two  fish  on  top  of  a  packing-case.  But  it  is  not 
a  difficult  matter  to  place  a  small  trout  cross- 
wise in  the  jaws  of  a  bull-trout,  and  to  this  day 
we  are  not  quite  certain. 

Therewere  tooth-marks  on  the  little  fish,  but, 
as  one  of  the  guides  said,  he  would  n't  put  it 
past  the  Head  to  have  made  them  himself. 

That  night  we  received  a  telegram.  I  remem- 
ber it  with  great  distinctness,  because  the  man 
who  brought  it  in  charged  fifteen  dollars  for 
delivering  it.  He  came  at  midnight,  and  how 
he  had  reached  us  no  one  will  ever  know.  The 
telegram  notified  us  that  a  railroad  strike  was 
about  to  take  place  and  that  we  should  get  out 
as  soon  as  possible. 

Early  the  next  morning  we  held  a  conference. 
It  was  about  as  far  back  as  it  was  to  go  ahead 

146 


CANON  FISHING 

over  the  range.  And  before  us  still  lay  the 
Great  Adventure  of  the  pass. 

We  took  a  vote  on  it  at  last  and  the  "ayes" 
carried.  We  would  go  ahead,  making  the  best 
time  we  could.  If  the  railroads  had  stopped 
when  we  got  out,  we  would  merely  turn  our 
pack-outfit  toward  the  east  and  keep  on  mov- 
ing. We  had  been  all  summer  in  the  saddle 
by  that  time,  and  a  matter  of  thirty-five  hun- 
dred miles  across  the  continent  seemed  a  trifle. 

Dan  Devore  brought  us  other  news  that 
morning,  however.  Cascade  Pass  was  closed 
with  snow.  A  miner  who  lived  alone  some- 
where up  the  gorge  had  brought  in  the  infor- 
mation. It  was  a  serious  moment.  We  could 
get  to  Doubtful  Lake,  but  it  was  unlikely  we 
could  get  any  farther.  The  comparatively  sim- 
ple matter  thus  became  a  complicated  one,  for 
Doubtful  Lake  was  not  only  a  detour;  it  was 
almost  inaccessible,  especially  for  horses.  But 
we  hated  to  acknowledge  defeat.  So  again  we 
voted  to  go  ahead. 

That  day,  while  the  pack-outfit  was  being 
got  ready,  I  had  a  long  talk  with  the  Forest 

147 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

Supervisor.  He  told  me  many  things  about  our 
National  Forests,  things  which  are  worth 
knowing  and  which  every  American,  whose 
playgrounds  the  forests  are,  should  know. 

In  the  first  place,  the  Forestry  Department 
welcomes  the  camper.  He  is  given  his  liberty, 
absolutely.  He  is  allowed  to  hunt  such  game  as 
is  in  season,  and  but  two  restrictions  are  placed 
on  him.  He  shall  leave  his  camp-ground  clean, 
and  he  shall  extinguish  every  spark  of  fire  be- 
fore he  leaves.  Beyond  that,  it  is  the  policy  of 
the  Government  to  let  campers  alone.  It  is 
possible  in  a  National  Forest  to  secure  a  spe- 
cial permit  to  put  up  buildings  for  permanent 
camps.  An  act  passed  on  the  4th  of  March, 
19 1 5,  gives  the  camper  a  permit  for  a  definite 
period,  although  until  that  time  the  Govern- 
ment could  revoke  the  permit  at  will. 

The  rental  is  so  small  that  it  is  practically 
negligible.  All  roads  and  trails  are  open  to  the 
public;  no  admission  can  be  charged  to  a  Na- 
tional Forest,  and  no  concession  will  be  sold. 
The  whole  idea  of  the  National  Forest  as  a 
playground  is  to  administer  it  in  the  public 

148 


CANON  FISHING 

interest.  Good  lots  on  Lake  Chelan  can  be 
obtained  for  from  five  to  twenty-five  dollars 
a  year,  depending  on  their  locality.  It  is  the 
intention  of  the  Government  to  pipe  water  to 
these  allotments. 

For  the  hunters,  there  is  no  protection  for 
bear,  cougar,  coyotes,  bobcats,  and  lynx.  No 
license  is  required  to  hunt  them.  And  to  the 
persistent  hunter  who  goes  into  the  woods,  not 
as  we  did,  with  an  outfit  the  size  of  a  cavalry 
regiment,  there  is  game  to  be  had  in  abundance. 
We  saw  goat-tracks  in  numbers  at  Cloudy 
Pass  and  the  marks  of  Bruin  everywhere. 

The  Chelan  National  Forest  is  well  protected 
against  fires.  A  fire-launch  patrols  the  lake  and 
lookouts  are  stationed  all  the  time  on  Strong 
Mountain  and  Crow's  Hill.  They  live  there 
on  the  summits,  where  provisions  and  water 
must  be  carried  up  to  them.  These  lookouts 
now  have  telephones,  but  until  last  summer 
they  used  the  heliograph  instead. 

So  now  we  prepared,  having  made  our  de- 
cision to  go  on.  That  night,  if  the  trail  was 
possible,  we  would  camp  at  Doubtful  Lake. 


XIV 

DOING  THE  IMPOSSIBLE 

The  first  part  of  that  adventurous  day  was 
quiet.  We  moved  sedately  along  on  an  over- 
grown trail,  mountain  walls  so  close  on  each 
side  that  the  valley  lay  in  shadow.  I  rode  next 
to  Dan  Devore  that  day,  and  on  the  trail  he 
stopped  his  horse  and  showed  me  the  place 
where  Hughie  McKeever  was  found. 

Dan  Devore  and  Hughie  McKeever  went 
out  one  November  to  go  up  to  Horseshoe 
Basin.  Dan  left  before  the  heaviest  snows 
came,  leaving  McKeever  alone.  When  Mc- 
Keever had  not  appeared  by  February,  Dan 
went  in  for  him.  His  cabin  was  empty. 

He  had  kept  a  diary  up  to  the  24th  of  De- 
cember, when  it  stopped  abruptly.  There  were 
a  few  marten  skins  in  the  cabin,  and  his  outfit. 
That  was  all.  In  some  cotton  woods,  not  far 
from  the  camp,  they  found  his  hatchet  and  his 
bag  hanging  to  a  tree. 

150 


DOING  THE  IMPOSSIBLE 

It  looked  for  a  time,  as  though  the  mystery 
of  Hughie  McKeever's  disappearance  would  be 
one  of  the  unsolved  tragedies  of  the  mountains. 
But  a  trapper,  whose  route  took  him  along 
Thunder  Creek  that  spring,  noticed  that  his 
dog  made  a  side  trip  each  time,  away  from  the 
trail.  At  last  he  investigated,  and  found  the 
body  of  Hughie  McKeever.  He  had  probably 
been  caught  in  a  snow-slide,  for  his  leg  was  bro- 
ken below  the  knee.  Unable  to  walk,  he  had 
put  his  snowshoes  on  his  hands  and,  dragging 
the  broken  leg,  had  crawled  six  miles  through 
the  snow  and  ice  of  the  mountain  winter.  When 
he  was  found,  he  was  only  a  mile  and  a  half 
from  his  cabin  and  safety. 

There  are  many  other  tragedies  of  that  val- 
ley. There  was  a  man  who  went  up  Bridge 
Creek  to  see  a  claim  he  had  located  there.  He 
was  to  be  out  four  days.  But  in  ten  days  he 
had  not  appeared,  which  was  not  surprising, 
for  there  was  twenty-five  feet  of  snow,  and 
when  the  snow  had  frozen  so  that  rescuers 
could  travel  over  the  crust,  they  went  up  after 
him.   He  was  lying  in  one  of  the  bunks  of  his 

151 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

cabin  with  a  mattress  over  him,  frozen  to 
death. 

So,  Dan  said,  they  covered  him  in  the  snow 
with  a  mattress,  and  went  back  in  the  spring 
to  bury  him. 

Every  winter,  in  those  mountain  valleys, 
men  who  cannot  get  their  outfits  out  before  the 
snow  shoot  their  horses  or  cut  their  throats 
rather  than  let  them  freeze  or  starve  to  death. 
It  is  a  grim  country,  the  Cascade  country. 
One  man  shot  nine  in  this  very  valley  last 
winter. 

Our  naturalist  had  been  caught  the  winter 
before  in  the  first  snowstorm  of  the  season.  He 
was  from  daylight  until  eight  o'clock  at  night 
making  two  miles  of  trail.  He  had  to  break  it, 
foot  by  foot,  for  the  horses. 

As  we  rode  up  the  gorge  toward  the  pass,  it 
was  evident,  from  the  amount  of  snow  in  the 
mountains,  that  stories  had  not  been  exag- 
gerated. The  packers  looked  dubious.  Even  if 
we  could  make  the  climb  to  Doubtful  Lake,  it 
seemed  impossible  that  we  could  get  farther. 
But  the  monotony  of  the  long  ride  was  broken 

152 


Mou?itain  miles :  The  trail  up  Szviftcurrefit  Pass,  Glacier  Natio?ial  Park 


DOING  THE  IMPOSSIBLE 

that  afternoon  by  our  first  sight,  as  a  party,  of 
a  bear. 

It  came  out  on  a  ledge  of  the  mountain,  per- 
haps three  hundred  yards  away,  and  proceeded, 
with  great  deliberation,  to  walk  across  a  rock- 
slide.  It  paid  no  attention  whatever  to  us  and 
to  the  wild  excitement  which  followed  its  dis- 
covery. Instantly,  the  three  junior  Rineharts 
were  off  their  horses,  and  our  artillery  attack 
was  being  prepared.  At  the  first  shot,  the  pack- 
ponies  went  crazy.  They  lunged  and  jumped, 
and  even  Buddy  showed  signs  of  strain,  leap- 
ing what  I  imagine  to  be  some  eleven  feet  in 
the  air  and  coming  back  on  four  rigid  knees. 
Followed  such  a  peppering  of  that  cliff  as  it  had 
never  had  before.  Little  clouds  of  rock-dust 
rose  above  the  bear,  in  front  of  him,  behind 
him,  and  below  him.  He  stopped,  mildly  as- 
tonished, and  looked  around.  More  noise, 
more  bucking  on  the  trail,  more  dust.  The  bear 
walked  on  a  trifle  faster. 

It  had  been  arranged  that  the  first  bear  was 
to  be  left  for  the  juniors.  So  the  packers  and 
the  rest  of  the  party  watched  and  advised. 

153 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

But,  as  I  have  related  elsewhere  in  this  nar- 
rative, there  were  no  casualties.  The  bear,  as 
far  as  I  know,  is  living  to-day,  an  honored 
member  of  his  community,  and  still  telling  how 
he  survived  the  great  war.  At  last  he  dis- 
appeared into  a  cave,  and  we  went  on  without 
so  much  as  a  single  skin  to  decorate  a  college 
room. 

We  went  on. 

What  odds  and  ends  of  knowledge  we  picked 
up  on  those  long  days  in  the  saddle!  That  if 
lightning  strikes  a  pine  even  lightly,  it  kills, 
but  that  a  fir  will  ordinarily  survive;  that 
mountain  miles  are  measured  air-line,  so  that 
twenty-five  miles  may  really  be  forty,  and 
that,  even  then,  they  are  calculated  on  the 
level,  so  that  one  is  credited  with  only  the  base 
of  the  triangle  while  he  is  laboriously  climbing 
up  its  hypotenuse.  I  am  personally  acquainted 
with  the  hypotenuses  of  a  good  many  moun- 
tains, and  there  is  no  use  trying  to  pretend  that 
they  are  bases.   They  are  not. 

Then  we  learned  that  the  purpose  of  the  Na- 
tional Forests  is  not  to  preserve  timber  but  to 

154 


DOING  THE  IMPOSSIBLE 

conserve  it.  The  idea  is  to  sell  and  reseed. 
About  twenty-five  per  cent  of  the  timber  we 
saw  was  yellow  pine.  But  most  of  the  timber 
we  saw  on  the  east  side  of  the  Cascades  will  be 
safe  for  some  time.  I  would  n't  undertake  to 
carry  out,  from  most  of  that  region,  enough 
pine-needles  to  make  a  sofa-cushion.  It  is 
quite  enough  to  get  oneself  out. 

Up  to  now  it  had  been  hard  going,  but  not 
impossible.  Now  we  were  to  do  the  impossible. 

It  is  a  curious  thing  about  mountains,  but 
they  have  a  hideous  tendency  to  fall  down. 
Whole  cliff-faces,  a  mile  or  so  high,  are  sud- 
denly seized  with  a  wandering  disposition. 
Leaving  the  old  folks  at  home  and  sliding  down 
into  the  valleys,  they  come  awful  croppers 
and  sustain  about  eleven  million  compound 
comminuted  fractures. 

These  family  breaks  are  known  as  rock- 
slides. 

Now  to  travel  twenty  feet  over  a  rock-slide 
is  to  twist  an  ankle,  bruise  a  shin-bone,  utterly 
discourage  a  horse,  and  sour  the  most  amiable 
disposition. 

155 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

There  is  no  flat  side  to  these  wandering 
rocks.  With  the  diabolical  ingenuity  that  na- 
ture can  show  when  she  goes  wrong,  they  lie 
edge  up.  Do  you  remember  the  little  mermaid 
who  wished  to  lose  her  tail  and  gain  legs  so  she 
could  follow  the  prince?  And  how  her  penalty 
was  that  every  step  was  like  walking  on  the 
edges  of  swords?  That  is  a  mountain  rock- 
slide,  but  I  do  not  recall  that  the  little  mer- 
maid had  to  drag  a  frightened  and  slipping 
horse,  which  stepped  on  her  now  and  then.  Or 
wear  riding-boots.  Or  stop  every  now  and 
then  to  be  photographed,  and  try  to  persuade 
her  horse  to  stop  also.  Or  keep  looking  up  to 
see  if  another  family  jar  threatened.  Or  look 
around  to  see  if  any  of  the  party  or  the  pack 
was  rolling  down  over  the  spareribs  of  that 
ghastly  skeleton.  No;  the  little  mermaid's 
problem  was  a  simple  and  uncomplicated  one. 

We  were  climbing,  too.  Only  one  thing  kept 
us  going.  The  narrow  valley  twisted,  and 
around  each  cliff -face  we  expected  the  end  — 
either  death  or  solid  ground.  But  not  so,  or, 
at  least,  not  for  some  hours.    Riding-boots 

156 


DOING  THE  IMPOSSIBLE 

peeled  like  a  sunburnt  face;  stones  dislodged 
and  rolled  down;  the  sun  beat  down  in  early 
September  fury,  and  still  we  went  on. 

Only  three  miles  it  was,  but  it  was  as  bad  a 
three  miles  as  I  have  ever  covered.  Then  — 
the  naturalist  turned  and  smiled. 

"Now  we  are  all  right,"  he  said.  "  We  start 
to  climb  soon/19 


XV 

DOUBTFUL  LAKE 

Of  all  the  mountain-climbing  I  have  ever  done 
the  switchback  up  to  Doubtful  Lake  is  the 
worst.  We  were  hours  doing  it.  There  were 
places  when  it  seemed  no  horse  could  possibly 
make  the  climb.  Back  and  forth,  up  and  up, 
along  that  narrow  rock-filled  trail,  which  was 
lost  here  in  a  snow-bank,  there  in  a  jungle  of 
evergreen  that  hung  out  from  the  mountain- 
side, we  were  obliged  to  go.  There  was  no  go- 
ing back.  We  could  not  have  turned  a  horse 
around,  nor  could  we  have  reversed  the  pack- 
outfit  without  losing  some  of  the  horses. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  we  dropped  two  horses 
on  that  switchback.  With  infinite  labor  the 
packers  got  them  back  to  the  trail,  rolling, 
tumbling,  and  roping  them  down  to  the  ledge 
below,  and  there  salvaging  them.  It  was  heart- 
breaking, nerve-racking  work.  Near  the  top 
was  an  ice-patch  across  a  brawling  waterfall. 
To  slip  on  that  ice-patch  meant  a  drop  of  in- 

158 


DOUBTFUL  LAKE 

credible  distance.  From  broken  places  in  the 
crust  it  was  possible  to  see  the  stream  below. 
Yet  over  the  ice  it  was  necessary  to  take  our- 
selves and  the  pack. 

11  Absolutely  no  riding  here,"  was  the  order, 
given  in  strained  tones.  For  everybody's 
nerves  were  on  edge. 

Somehow  or  other,  we  got  over.  I  can  still 
see  one  little  pack-pony  wandering  away  from 
the  others  and  traveling  across  that  tiny  ice- 
field on  the  very  brink  of  death  at  the  top  of 
the  precipice.  The  sun  had  softened  the  snow 
so  that  I  fell  flat  into  it.  And  there  was  a 
dreadful  moment  when  I  thought  I  was  going 
to  slide. 

Even  when  I  was  safely  over,  my  anxie- 
ties were  just  beginning.  For  the  Head  and  the 
Juniors  were  not  yet  over.  And  there  was  no 
space  to  stop  and  see  them  come.  It  was  nec- 
essary to  move  on  up  the  switchback,  that  the 
next  horse  behind  might  scramble  up.  Buddy 
went  gallantly  on,  leaping,  slipping,  his  flanks 
heaving,  his  nostrils  dilated.  Then,  at  last,  the 
familiar  call,  — 

159 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

"Are  you  all  right,  mother?" 

And  I  knew  it  was  all  right  with  them  —  so 
far. 

Three  thousand  feet  that  switchback  went 
straight  up  in  the  air.  How  many  thousand 
feet  we  traveled  back  and  forward,  I  do  not 
know. 

But  these  things  have  a  way  of  getting  over 
somehow.  The  last  of  the  pack-horses  was 
three  hours  behind  us  in  reaching  Doubtful 
Lake.  The  weary  little  beasts,  cut,  bruised, 
and  by  this  time  very  hungry,  looked  dejected 
and  forlorn.  It  was  bitterly  cold.  Doubtful 
Lake  was  full  of  floating  ice,  and  a  chilling 
wind  blew  on  us  from  the  snow  all  about.  A 
bear  came  out  on  the  cliff-face  across  the  val- 
ley. But  no  one  attempted  to  shoot  at  him. 
We  were  too  tired,  too  bruised  and  sore.  We 
gave  him  no  more  than  a  passing  glance. 

It  had  been  a  tremendous  experience,  but  a 
most  alarming  one.  From  the  brink  of  that 
pocket  on  the  mountain-top  where  we  stood 
the  earth  fell  away  to  vast  distances  beneath. 
The  little  river  which  empties  Doubtful  Lake 

160 


'  •     /-    7    ~  "     -', 

V       1  ' 

*^vH 

• 

Sl'*^  " 

8k^ 

\       '  :.    -  ~  f0* 

By 

^Be^i 

**    $S» 

Jtf  .    "i-;- 

liSlrl 

i'-^SS 

**'    T& 

-.*\           '*';.. 

Spill 

\  **w**  &"„** 

^-1 

;.  ' 

■St* 

COPYRIGHT    BY    FRED    H.    KISER,    PORTLAND,    OREGON 


Switchbacks  on  the  trail  (  Glacier  National  Park) 


DOUBTFUL  LAKE 

slid  greasily  over  a  rock  and  disappeared  with- 
out a  sound  into  the  void. 

Until  the  pack-outfit  arrived,  we  could  have 
no  food.  We  built  a  fire  and  huddled  round 
it,  and  now  and  then  one  of  us  would  go  to  the 
edge  of  the  pit  which  lay  below  to  listen.  The 
summer  evening  was  over  and  night  had  fallen 
before  we  heard  the  horses  coming  near  the 
top  of  the  cliff.  We  cheered  them,  as,  one 
by  one,  they  stumbled  over  the  edge,  dark 
figures  of  horses  and  men,  the  animals  with 
their  bulging  packs.  They  had  put  up  a  gal- 
lant fight. 

And  we  had  no  food  for  the  horses.  The  few 
oats  we  had  been  able  to  carry  were  gone, 
and  there  was  no  grass  on  the  little  plateau. 
There  was  heather,  deceptively  green,  but  noth- 
ing else.  And  here,  for  the  benefit  of  those 
who  may  follow  us  along  the  trail,  let  me  say 
that  oats  should  be  carried,  if  two  additional 
horses  are  required  for  the  purpose  —  carried, 
and  kept  in  reserve  for  the  last  hard  days  of 
the  trip. 

The  two  horses  that  had  fallen  were  un- 
161 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

packed  first.  They  were  cut,  and  on  their  cuts 
the  Head  poured  iodine.  But  that  was  all  we 
could  do  for  them.  One  little  gray  mare  was 
trembling  violently.  She  went  over  a  cliff 
again  the  next  day,  but  I  am  glad  to  say  that 
we  took  her  out  finally,  not  much  the  worse 
except  for  a  badly  cut  shoulder.  The  other 
horse,  a  sorrel,  had  only  a  day  or  two  before 
slid  five  hundred  feet  down  a  snow-bank.  He 
was  still  stiff  from  his  previous  accident*  and 
if  ever  I  saw  a  horse  whose  nerve  was  gone,  I 
saw  one  there  —  a  poor,  tragic,  shaken  crea- 
ture, trembling  at  a  word. 

That  night,  while  we  lay  wrapped  in  blan- 
kets round  the  fire  while  the  cooks  prepared 
supper  at  another  fire  near  by,  the  Optimist 
produced  a  bottle  of  claret.  We  drank  it  out 
of  tin  cups,  the  only  wine  of  the  journey,  and 
not  until  long  afterward  did  we  know  its  his- 
tory —  that  a  very  great  man  to  whose  faith 
the  Northwest  owes  so  much  of  its  develop- 
ment had  purchased  it,  twenty-five  years  be- 
fore, for  the  visit  to  this  country  of  Albert, 
King  of  the  Belgians. 

162 


DOUBTFUL  LAKE 

That  claret,  taken  so  casually  from  tin  cups 
near  the  summit  of  the  Cascades,  had  been  a 
part  of  the  store  of  that  great  dreamer  and 
most  abstemious  of  men,  James  J.  Hill,  laid  in 
for  the  use  of  that  other  great  dreamer  and 
idealist,  Albert,  when  he  was  his  guest.  While 
we  ate,  Weaver  said  suddenly,  — 

11  Listen!" 

His  keen  ears  had  caught  the  sound  of  a  bell. 
He  got  up. 

11  Either  Johnny  or  Buck,"  he  said,"  starting 
back  home!" 

Then  commenced  again  that  heart-breaking 
task  of  rounding  up  the  horses.  That  is  a  part 
of  such  an  expedition.  And,  even  at  that,  one 
escaped  and  was  found  the  next  morning  high 
up  the  cliffside,  in  a  basin. 

It  was  too  late  to  put  up  all  the  tents  that 
night.  Mrs.  Fred  and  I  slept  in  our  clothes 
but  under  canvas,  and  the  men  lay  out  with 
their  faces  to  the  sky. 

Toward  dawn  a  thunder-storm  came  up. 
For  we  were  on  the  crest  of  the  Cascades 
now,  where  the  rain-clouds  empty  themselves 

163 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

before  traveling  to  the  arid  country  to  the 
east.  Just  over  the  mountain-wall  above  us 
lay  the  Pacific  Slope. 

The  rain  came  down,  and  around  the  peaks 
overhead  lightning  flashed  and  flamed.  No  one 
moved  except  Joe,  who  sat  up  in  his  blankets, 
put  his  hat  on,  said,  "Let  'er  rain,"  and  lay 
down  to  sleep  again.  Peanuts,  the  naturalist's 
horse,  sought  human  companionship  in  the 
storm,  and  wandered  into  camp,  where  one  of 
the  young  bear-hunters  wakened  to  find  him 
stepping  across  his  prostrate  and  blanketed 
form. 

Then  all  was  still  again,  except  for  the  solid 
beat  of  the  rain  on  canvas  and  blanket,  horse 
and  man. 

It  cleared  toward  morning,  and  at  dawn 
Dan  was  up  and  climbed  the  wall  on  foot.  At 
breakfast,  on  his  return,  we  held  a  conference. 
He  reported  that  it  was  possible  to  reach  the 
top  —  possible  but  difficult,  and  that  what  lay 
on  the  other  side  we  should  have  to  discover 
later  on. 

A  night's  sleep  had  made  Joe  all  business 
164 


DOUBTFUL  LAKE 

again.  On  the  previous  day  he  had  been  too 
busy  saving  his  camera  and  his  life  —  camera 
first,  of  course  —  to  try  for  pictures.  But  now 
he  had  a  brilliant  idea. 

"Now  see  here,"  he  said  to  me;  "I've  got  a 
great  idea.   How's  Buddy  about  water?" 

"He's  partial  to  it,"  I  admitted,  "for  drink- 
ing, or  for  lying  down  and  rolling  in  it,  es- 
pecially when  I  am  on  him.  Why?" 

"Well,  it's  like  this,"  he  observed:  "I'm  set 
up  on  the  bank  of  the  lake.  See?  And  you  ride 
him  into  the  water  and  get  him  to  scramble  up 
on  one  of  those  ice-cakes.  Do  you  get  it?  It'll 
be  a  whale  of  a  picture." 

"Joe,"  I  said,  in  a  stern  voice,  "did  you  ever 
try  to  make  a  horse  go  into  an  icy  lake  and 
climb  on  to  an  ice-cake?  Because  if  you  have, 
you  can  do  it  now.  I  can  turn  the  camera  all 
right.  Anyhow,"  I  added  firmly,  "I've  been 
photographed  enough.  This  film  is  going  to 
look  as  if  I'd  crossed  the  Cascades  alone. 
Some  of  you  other  people  ought  to  have  a 
chance." 

But  a  moving-picture  man  after  a  picture  is 
165 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

as  determined  as  a  cook  who  does  not  like  the 
suburbs. 

I  rode  Buddy  to  the  brink  of  the  lake,  and 
there  spoke  to  him  in  friendly  tones.  I  ob- 
served that  this  lake  was  like  other  lakes,  only 
colder,  and  that  it  ought  to  be  mere  play  after 
the  day  before.  I  also  selected  a  large  ice-cake, 
which  looked  fairly  solid,  and  pointed  Buddy 
at  it. 

Then  I  kicked  him.  He  took  a  step  and  be- 
gan to  shake.  Then  he  leaped  six  feet  to  one 
side  and  reared,  still  shaking.  Then  he  turned 
round  and  headed  for  the  camp. 

By  that  I  was  determined  on  the  picture. 
There  is  nothing  like  two  wills  set  in  opposite 
directions  to  determine  a  woman.  Buddy  and 
I  again  and  again  approached  the  lake,  mostly 
sideways.  But  at  last  he  went  in,  took  twenty 
steps  out,  felt  the  cold  on  his  poor  empty  belly, 
and  —  refused  the  ice-cake.  We'went  out  much 
faster  than  we  went  in,  making  the  bank  in  a 
great  bound  and  a  very  bad  humor  —  two  very 
bad  humors. 


XVI 

OVER  CASCADE  PASS 

To  get  out  of  the  Doubtful  Lake  plateau  to 
Cascade  Pass  it  was  necessary  to  climb  eight 
hundred  feet  up  a  steep  and  very  slippery  cliff- 
side.  On  the  other  side  lay  the  pass,  but  on  the 
level  of  the  lake.  It  was  here  that  we  "went 
up  a  hill  one  day  and  then  went  down  again" 
with  a  vengeance.  And  on  this  cliffside  it  was 
that  the  little  gray  mare  went  over  again,  fall- 
ing straight  on  to  a  snow-bank,  which  saved 
her,  and  then  rolling  over  and  over  shedding 
parts  of  our  equipment,  and  landing  far  below 
dazed  and  almost  senseless. 

It  was  on  the  top  of  that  wall  above  Doubt- 
ful Lake  that  I  had  the  greatest  fright  of  the 
trip. 

That  morning,  as  a  special  favor,  the  Little 
Boy  had  been  allowed  to  go  ahead  with  Mr. 
Hilligoss,  who  was  to  clear  trail  and  cut  foot- 
holds where  they  were  necessary.    When  we 

167 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

were  more  than  halfway  to  the  top  of  the  wall 
above  the  lake,  two  alternative  routes  to  the 
top  offered  themselves,  one  to  the  right  across 
a  snow-field  that  hugged  the  edge  of  a  cliff 
which  dropped  sheer  five  hundred  feet  to 
the  water,  another  to  the  left  over  slippery 
heather  which  threatened  a  slide  and  a  casu- 
alty at  every  step.  The  Woodsman  had  left  no 
blazes,  there  being  no  tree  to  mark.  Holding 
on  by  clutching  to  the  heather  with  our  hands, 
we  debated.  Finally,  we  qhose  the  left-hand 
route  as  the  one  they  had  probably  taken. 
But  when  we  reached  the  top,  the  Woodsman 
and  the  Little  Boy  were  not  there.  We  hal- 
looed, but  there  was  no  reply.  And,  suddenly, 
the  terrible  silence  of  the  mountains  seemed 
ominous.  Had  they  ventured  across  the  snow- 
bank and  slipped? 

I  am  not  ashamed  to  say  that,  sitting  on  my 
horse  on  the  top  of  that  mountain-wall,  I  pro- 
ceeded to  have  a  noiseless  attack  of  hysterics. 
There  were  too  many  chances  of  accident  for 
any  of  the  party  to  take  the  matter  lightly. 
There  we  gathered  on  that  little  mountain 

1 68 


OVER  CASCADE  PASS 

meadow,  not  much  bigger  than  a  good-sized 
room,  and  waited.  There  was  snow  and  ice  and 
silence  everywhere.  Below,  Doubtful  Lake  lay 
like  a  sapphire  set  in  granite,  and  far  beneath 
it  lay  the  valley  from  which  we  had  climbed 
the  day  before.  But  no  one  cared  for  scenery. 

Then  it  was  that  "  Silent  Lawrie"  turned 
his  horse  around  and  went  back.  Soon  he  hal- 
looed, and,  climbing  back  to  us,  reported  that 
they  had  crossed  the  ice-bank.  He  had  found 
the  marks  of  the  axe  making  footholds.  And 
soon  afterward  there  was  another  halloo  from 
below,  and  the  missing  ones  rode  into  sight. 
They  were  blithe  and  gay.  They  had  crossed 
the  ice-field  and  had  seen  a  view  which  they 
urged  we  should  not  miss.  But  I  had  had 
enough  view.  All  I  wanted  was  the  level 
earth.  There  could  be  nothing  after  that  flat 
enough  to  suit  me. 

Sliding,  stumbling,  falling,  leading  our 
scrambling  horses,  we  got  down  the  wall  on  the 
other  side.  It  was  easier  going,  but  slippery 
with  heather  and  that  green  moss  of  the  moun- 
tains, which  looks  so  tempting  but  which  gives 

169 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

neither  foothold  nor  nourishment.  Then,  at 
last,  the  pass. 

It  was  thirty-six  hours  since  our  horses  had 
had  anything  to  eat.  We  had  had  food  and 
sleep,  but  during  the  entire  night  the  poor 
animals  had  been  searching  those  rocky  moun- 
tain-sides for  food  and  failing  to  find  it.  They 
stood  in  a  dejected  group,  heads  down,  feet 
well  braced  to  support  their  weary  bodies. 

But  last  summer  was  not  a  normal  one.  Un- 
usually heavy  snowfalls  the  winter  before  had 
been  followed  by  a  late,  cold  spring.  The  snow 
was  only  beginning  to  melt  late  in  July,  and  by 
September,  although  almost  gone  from  the  pass 
itself,  it  still  covered  deep  the  trail  on  the  east 
side. 

So,  some  of  those  who  read  this  may  try  the 
same  great  adventure  hereafter  and  find  it  un- 
necessary to  make  the  Doubtful  Lake  detour. 
I  hope  so.  Because  the  pass  is  too  wonderful 
not  to  be  visited.  Some  day,  when  this  mag- 
nificent region  becomes  a  National  Park,  and 
there  is  something  more  than  a  dollar  a  mile  to 
be  spent  on  trails,  a  thousand  dollars  or  so  in- 

170 


OVER  CASCADE  PASS 

vested  in  trail-work  will  put  this  roof  of  the 
world  within  reach  of  any  one  who  can  sit  a 
horse.  And  those  who  go  there  will  be  the 
better  for  the  going.  Petty  things  slip  away  in 
the  silent  high  places.  It  is  easy  to  believe  in 
God  there.  And  the  stars  and  heaven  seem 
very  close. 

One  thing  died  there  forever  for  me  —  my 
confidence  in  the  man  who  writes  the  geog- 
raphy and  who  says  that,  representing  the 
earth  by  an  orange,  the  highest  mountains 
are  merely  as  the  corrugations  on  its  skin. 

On  Cascade  Pass  is  the  dividing-line  between 
the  Chelan  and  the  Washington  National  For- 
ests. For  some  reason  we  had  confidently  be- 
lieved that  reaching  the  pass  would  see  the 
end  of  our  difficulties.  The  only  question  that 
had  ever  arisen  was  whether  we  could  get  to 
the  pass  or  not.  And  now  we  were  there. 

We  were  all  perceptibly  cheered;  even  the 
horses  seemed  to  feel  that  the  worst  was  over. 
Tame  grouse  scudded  almost  under  our  feet. 
They  had  never  seen  human  beings,  and  there- 
fore had  no  terror  of  them. 

171 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

And  here  occurred  one  of  the  small  dis- 
appointments that  the  Middle  Boy  will  prob- 
ably remember  long  after  he  has  forgotten  the 
altitude  in  feet  of  that  pass  and  other  unimpor- 
tant matters.  For  he  scared  up  some  grouse, 
and  this  is  the  tragedy.  The  open  season  for 
grouse  is  September  1st  in  Chelan  and  Septem- 
ber 15th  across  the  line.  And  the  birds  would 
not  cross  the  line.  They  were  wise  birds,  and 
must  have  had  a  calendar  about  them,  for,  al- 
though we  were  vague  as  to  the  date,  we  knew 
it  was  not  yet  the  15th.  So  they  sat  or  flut- 
tered about,  and  looked  most  awfully  good  to 
eat.  But  they  never  went  near  the  danger-zone 
or  the  enemy's  trenches. 

We  lay  about  and  rested,  and  the  grouse 
laughed  at  us,  and  a  great  marmot,  sentinel  of 
his  colony,  sat  on  a  near-by  rock  and  whistled 
reports  of  what  we  were  doing.  Joe  unlimbered 
the  moving-picture  camera,  and  the  Head  used 
the  remainder  of  his  small  stock  of  iodine  on 
the  injured  horses.  The  sun  shone  on  the  flow- 
ers and  the  snow,  on  the  pail  in  which  our  cocoa 
was  cooking,  on  the  barrels  of  our  unused  guns 

172 


OVER  CASCADE  PASS 

and  the  buckles  of  the  saddles.  We  watched 
the  pack-horses  coming  down,  tiny  pin-point 
figures,  oddly  distorted  by  the  great  packs. 
And  we  rested  for  the  descent. 

I  do  not  know  why  we  thought  that  descent 
from  Cascade  Pass  on  the  Pacific  side  was  go- 
ing to  be  easy.  It  was  by  far  the  most  nerve- 
racking  part  of  the  trip.  Yet  we  started  off 
blithely  enough.  Perhaps  Buddy  knew  that 
he  was  the  first  horse  to  make  that  desper- 
ate excursion.  He  developed  a  strange  nerv- 
ousness, and  took  to  leaping  off  the  trail  in 
bad  places,  so  that  one  moment  I  was  a  part  of 
the  procession  and  the  next  was  likely  to  be  six 
feet  above  the  trail  on  a  rocky  ledge,  with  no 
apparent  way  to  get  down. 

We  had  expected  that  there  would  be  less 
snow  on  the  western  slope,  but  at  the  beginning 
of  the  trip  we  found  snow  everywhere.  And 
whereas  before  the  rock-slides  had  been  wretch- 
edly uncomfortable  but  at  comparatively  low 
altitudes,  now  we  found  ourselves  climbing 
across  slides  which  hugged  the  mountain 
thousands  of  feet  above  the  valley. 

173 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

Our  nerves  began  to  go,  too,  I  think,  on  that 
last  day.  We  were  plainly  frightened,  not  for 
ourselves  but  each  for  the  other.  There  were 
many  places  where  to  dislodge  a  stone  was  to 
lose  it  as  down  a  bottomless  well.  There  was 
one  frightful  spot  where  it  was  necessary  to  go 
through  a  waterfall  on  a  narrow  ledge  slippery 
with  moss,  where  the  water  dropped  straight, 
uncounted  feet  to  the  valley  telow. 

The  Little  Boy  paused  blithely,  his  reins 
over  his  arm,  and  surveyed  the  scenery  from 
the  center  of  this  death-trap. 

"If  anybody  slipped  here,"  he  said,  "he'd 
fall  quite  a  distance."  Then  he  kicked  a  stone 
to  see  it  go. 

11  Quit  that!"  said  the  Head,  in  awful  tones. 

Midway  of  the  descent,  we  estimated  that  we 
should  lose  at  least  ten  horses.  The  pack  was 
behind  us,  and  there  was  no  way  to  discover 
how  they  were  faring.  But  as  the  ledges  were 
never  wide  enough  for  a  horse  and  the  one 
leading  him  to  move  side  by  side,  it  seemed  im- 
possible that  the  pack-ponies  with  their  wide 
burdens  could  edge  their  way  along. 

174 


UmTM 

, 

4 

J 

!■ 

„,,    '          '*"''" 

• 't.Io  W ',) 

i  1 1  3k&* 

If 

J 

^*9L 

-^hI$J 

Watching  the  pack-train  coming  down  at  Cascade  Pass 


OVER  CASCADE  PASS 

I  had  mounted  Buddy  again.  I  was  too 
fatigued  to  walk  farther,  and,  besides,  I  had 
fallen  so  often  that  I  felt  he  was  more  sure- 
footed than  I.  Perhaps  my  narrowest  escape 
on  that  trip  was  where  a  huge  stone  had  slipped 
across  the  ledge  we  were  following.  Buddy, 
afraid  to  climb  its  slippery  sides,  undertook 
to  leap  it.  There  was  one  terrible  moment 
when  he  failed  to  make  a  footing  with  his  hind 
feet  and  we  hung  there  over  the  gorge.  After 
that,  Dan  Devore  led  him. 

In  spite  of  our  difficulties,  we  got  down  to  the 
timber-line  rather  quickly.  But  there  trouble 
seemed  to  increase  rather  than  diminish. 
Trees  had  fallen  across  the  way,  and  danger- 
ous detours  on  uncertain  footing  were  neces- 
sary to  get  round  them.  The  warm  rains  of  the 
Pacific  Slope  had  covered  the  mountain-sides 
with  thick  vegetation  also.  Our  way,  hardly 
less  steep  than  on  the  day  before,  was  over- 
grown with  greenery  that  was  often  a  trap  for 
the  unwary.  And  even  when,  at  last,  we  were 
down  beyond  the  imminent  danger  of  break- 
ing our  necks  at  every  step,  there  were  more 

175 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

difficulties.  The  vegetation  was  rank,  tremen- 
dously high.  We  worked  our  way  through  it, 
lost  to  each  other  and  to  the  world.  Wilderness 
snows  had  turned  the  small  streams  to  roaring 
rivers  and  spread  them  over  flats  through 
which  we  floundered.  So  long  was  it  since  the 
trail  had  been  used  that  it  was  often  difficult 
to  tell  where  it  took  off  from  the  other  side  of 
the  stream.  And  our  horses  were  growing  very 
weary.  They  had  made  the  entire  trip  without 
grain  and  with  such  bits  of  pasture  as  they 
could  pick  up  in  the  mountains.  Now  it  was  a 
long  time  since  they  had  had  even  grass. 

It  will  never  be  possible  to  know  how  many 
miles  we  covered  in  that  Cascade  Pass  trip. 
As  Mr.  Hilligoss  said,  mountain  miles  were 
measured  with  a  coonskin,  and  they  threw  in 
the  tail.  Often  to  make  a  mile's  advance  we 
traveled  four  on  the  mountain-side. 

So  when  they  tell  me  that  it  was  a  trifle  of 
sixteen  miles  from  the  top  of  Cascade  Pass  to 
the  camp-site  we  made  that  night,  I  know  that 
it  was  nearer  thirty.  In  point  of  difficulties,  it 
was  a  thousand. 

176 


OVER  CASCADE  PASS 

Yet  the  last  part  of  the  trip,  had  we  not  been 
too  weary  to  enjoy  it,  was  superbly  beautiful. 
There  was  a  fine  rain  falling.  The  undergrowth 
was  less  riotous  and  had  taken  on  the  form  of 
giant  ferns,  ten  feet  high,  which  overhung  the 
trail.  Here  were  great  cypress  trees  thirty-six 
feet  in  circumference  —  a  forest  of  them.  We 
rode  through  green  aisles  where  even  the  death 
of  the  forest  was  covered  by  soft  moss.  Out  of 
the  green  and  moss-covered  trunks  of  dead 
giants,  new  growth  had  sprung,  new  trees, 
hanging  gardens  of  ferns. 

There  had  been  much  talk  of  Mineral  Park. 
It  was  our  objective  point  for  camp  that  night, 
and  I  think  I  had  gathered  that  it  was  to  be 
a  settlement.  I  expected  nothing  less  than  a 
post-office  and  perhaps  some  miners'  cabins. 
When,  at  the  end  of  that  long,  hard  day,  we 
reached  Mineral  Park  at  twilight  and  in  a 
heavy  rain,  I  was  doomed  to  disappointment. 

Mineral  Park  consists  of  a  deserted  shack 
in  a  clearing  perhaps  forty  feet  square,  on  the 
bank  of  a  mountain  stream.  All  around  it  is 
impenetrable  forest.  The  mountains  converge 

177 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

here  so  that  the  valley  becomes  a  canon.  So 
dense  was  the  growth  that  we  put  up  our  tents 
on  the  trail  itself. 

In  the  little  clearing  round  the  empty  shack, 
the  horses  were  tied  in  the  cold  rain.  It  was  im- 
possible to  let  them  loose,  for  we  could  never 
have  found  them  again.  Our  hearts  ached  that 
night  for  the  hungry  creatures;  the  rain  had 
brought  a  cold  wind  and  they  could  not  even 
move  about  to  keep  warm. 

I  was  too  tired  to  eat  that  night.  I  went  to 
bed  and  lay  in  my  tent,  listening  to  the  sound 
of  the  rain  on  the  canvas.  The  camp-stove  was 
set  up  in  the  trail,  and  the  others  gathered 
round  it,  eating  in  the  rain.  But,  weary  as  I 
was,  I  did  not  sleep.  For  the  first  time,  ter- 
ror of  the  forest  gripped  me.  It  menaced;  it 
threatened. 

The  roar  of  the  river  sounded  like  the  rush 
of  flame.  I  lay  there  and  wondered  what  would 
happen  if  the  forest  took  fire.  For  the  gentle 
summer  rain  would  do  little  good  once  a  fire 
started.  There  would  be  no  way  out.  The 
giant  cliffs  would  offer  no  refuge.  We  could  not 

178 


OVER  CASCADE  PASS 

even  have  reached  them  through  the  jungle 
had  we  tried.  And  forest-fires  were  common 
enough.  We  had  ridden  over  too  many  burned 
areas  not  to  realize  that. 


XVII 

OUT  TO  CIVILIZATION 

It  was  still  raining  in  the  morning.  The  skies 
were  gray  and  sodden  and  the  air  was  moist. 
We  stood  round  the  camp-fire  and  ate  our 
fried  ham,  hot  coffee,  and  biscuits.  It  was 
then  that  the  Head,  prompted  by  sympathy, 
fed  his  horse  the  rain-soaked  biscuit,  the  apple, 
the  two  lumps  of  sugar,  and  the  raw  egg. 

Yet,  in  spite  of  the  weather,  we  were  jubi- 
lant. The  pack-train  had  come  through  with- 
out the  loss  of  a  single  horse.  Again  the  impos- 
sible had  become  possible.  And  that  day  was 
to  see  us  out  of  the  mountains  and  in  peace- 
ful green  valleys,  where  the  horses  could  eat 
their  fill. 

The  sun  came  out  as  we  started.  Had  it 
not  been  for  the  horses,  we  should  have  been 
entirely  happy.  But  sympathy  for  them  had 
become  an  obsession.  We  rode  slowly  to  save 
them;  we  walked  when  we  could.     It  was 

1 80 


OUT  TO  CIVILIZATION 

strange  to  go  through  that  green  wonderland 
and  find  not  a  leaf  the  horses  could  eat.  It  was 
all  moss,  ferns,  and  evergreens. 

From  the  semi-arid  lands  east  of  the  Gas- 
cades  to  the  rank  vegetation  of  the  Pacific  side 
was  an  extraordinary  change.  Trees  grew  to 
enormous  sizes.  In  addition  to  the  great  cedars, 
there  were  hemlocks  fifteen  and  eighteen  feet 
in  circumference.  Only  the  strong  trees  sur- 
vive in  these  valleys,  and  by  that  ruthless 
selection  of  nature  weak  young  saplings  die 
early.  So  we  found  cedar,  hemlock,  lodge-pole 
pine,  white  and  Douglas  fir,  cotton  wood,  white 
pine,  spruce,  and  alder  of  enormous  size. 

The  brake  ferns  were  the  most  common, 
often  growing  ten  feet  tall.  We  counted  five 
varieties  of  ferns  growing  in  profusion,  among 
them  brake  ferns,  sword-ferns,  and  maidenhair, 
most  beautiful  and  luxuriant.  The  maidenhair 
fern  grew  in  masses,  covering  dead  trunks  of 
trees  and  making  solid  walls  of  delicate  green 
beside  the  trail. 

"Silent  Lawrie"  knew  them  all.  He  knew 
every  tiniest  flower  and  plant  that  thrust  its 

181 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

head  above  the  leaf-mould.  He  saw  them  all, 
too.  Peanuts,  his  horse,  made  his  own  way 
now,  and  the  naturalist  sat  a  trifle  sideways 
in  his  saddle  and  showed  me  his  discoveries. 

I  am  no  naturalist,  so  I  rode  behind  him, 
notebook  in  hand,  and  I  made  a  list  something 
like  this.  If  there  are  any  errors  they  are  not 
the  naturalist's,  but  mine,  because,  although  I 
have  written  a  great  deal  on  a  horse's  back,  I 
am  not  proof  against  the  accident  of  Whiskers 
stirring  a  yellow- jackets'  nest  on  the  trail,  or  of 
Buddy  stumbling,  weary  beast  that  he  was, 
over  a  root  on  the  path. 

This  is  my  list:  red-stemmed  dogwood; 
bunchberries,  in  blossom  on  the  higher  reaches, 
in  bloom  below;  service-berries,  salmon-ber- 
ries; skunk-cabbage,  beloved  by  bears,  and  the 
roots  of  which  the  Indians  roast  and  eat;  above 
four  thousand  feet,  white  rhododendrons,  and, 
above  four  thousand  five  hundred  feet,  heather; 
hellebore  also  in  the  high  places;  thimble- 
berries  and  red  elderberries,  tag-alder,  red 
honeysuckle,  long  stretches  of  willows  in  the 
creek-bottoms;  vining  maples,  too,  and  yew 

182 


OUT  TO  CIVILIZATION 

trees,  the  wood  of  which  the  Indians  use  for 
making  bows. 

Around  Cloudy  Pass  we  found  the  red 
monkey-flower.  In  different  places  there  was  the 
wild  parsnip;  the  ginger-plant,  with  its  heart- 
shaped  leaf  and  blossom,  buried  in  the  leaf- 
mould,  its  crushed  leaves  redolent  of  ginger; 
masses  of  yellow  violets,  twinflowers,  ox-eye 
daisies,  and  sweet-in-death,  which  is  sold  on 
the  streets  in  the  West  as  we  sell  sweet  lavender. 
There  were  buttercups,  purple  asters,  blue- 
bells, goat's-beard,  columbines,  Mariposa  lilies, 
bird's-bill,  trillium,  devil's-club,  wild  white  he- 
liotrope, brick-leaved  spirea,  wintergreen,  ever- 
lasting. 

And  there  are  still  others,  where  Buddy  col- 
lided with  the  yellow-jacket,  that  I  find  I  can- 
not read  at  all. 

Something  lifted  for  me  that  day  as  Buddy 
and  I  led  off  down  that  fat,  green  valley,  with 
the  pass  farther  and  farther  behind  —  a  weight 
off  my  spirit,  a  deadly  fear  of  accident,  not  to 
myself  but  to  the  Family,  which  had  obsessed 
me  for  the  last  few  days.  But  now  I  could  twist 

183 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

in  my  saddle  and  see  them  all,  ruddy  and  sound 
and  happy,  whistling  as  they  rode.  And  I 
knew  that  it  was  all  right.  It  had  been  good 
for  them  and  good  for  me.  It  is  always  good  to 
do  a  difficult  thing.  And  no  one  has  ever  fought 
a  mountain  and  won  who  is  not  the  better  for 
it.  The  mountains  are  not  for  the  weak  or  the 
craven,  or  the  feeble  of  mind  or  body. 

We  went  on,  to  the  distant  tinkle  of  the  bell 
on  the  lead-horse  of  the  pack-train. 

It  was  that  day  that  " Silent  Lawrie"  spoke 
I  remember,  because  he  had  said  so  little  be- 
fore, and  because  what  he  said  was  so  well 
worth  remembering. 

"  Why  can't  all  this  sort  of  thing  be  put  into 
music?"  he  asked.  "It  is  music.  Think  of  it, 
the  drama  of  it  all!" 

Then  he  "went  on,  and  this  is  what  "Silent 
Lawrie"  wants  to  have  written.  I  pass  it  on  to 
the  world,  and  surely  it  can  be  done.  It  starts 
at  dawn,  with  the  dew,  and  the  whistling  of 
the  packers  as  they  go  after  the  horses.  Then 
come  the  bells  of  the  horses  as  they  come  in, 
the  smoke  of  the  camp-fire,  the  first  sunlight  on 

184 


OUT  TO  CIVILIZATION 

the  mountains,  the  saddling  and  packing.  And 
all  the  time  the  packers  are  whistling. 

Then  the  pack  starts  out  on  the  trail,  the  bells 
of  the  leaders  jingling,  the  rattle  and  crunch  of 
buckles  and  saddle-leather,  the  click  of  the 
horses'  feet  against  the  rocks,  the  swish  as 
they  ford  a  singing  stream.  The  wind  is  in  the 
trees  and  birds  are  chirping.  Then  comes 
the  long,  hard  day,  the  forest,  the  first  sight 
of  snow-covered  peaks,  the  final  effort,  and 
camp. 

After  that,  there  is  the  thrush's  evening  song, 
the  afterglow,  the  camp-fire,  and  the  stars. 
And  over  all  is  the  quiet  of  the  night,  and  the 
faint  bells  of  grazing  horses,  like  the  silver 
ringing  of  the  bell  at  a  mass. 

I  wish  I  could  do  it. 

At  noon  that  day  in  the  Skagit  Valley,  we 
found  our  first  civilization,  a  camp  where  a 
man  was  cutting  cedar  blocks  for  shingles.  He 
looked  absolutely  astounded  when  our  long 
procession  drew  in  around  his  shanty.  He 
meant  only  one  thing  to  us;  he  meant  oats.  If 
he  had  oats,  we  were  saved.  If  he  had  no  oats, 

185 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

it  meant  again  long  hours  of  traveling  with  our 
hungry  horses. 

He  had  a  bag  of  oats.  But  he  was  not  in- 
clined, at  first,  to  dispose  of  them,  and,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  he  did  not  sell  them  to  us  at  all. 
When  we  finally  got  them  from  him,  it  was 
only  on  our  promise  to  send  back  more  oats. 
Money  was  of  no  use  to  him  there  in  the  wilder- 
ness; but  oats  meant  everything. 

Thirty-one  horses  we  drove  into  that  little 
bit  of  a  clearing  under  the  cedar  trees,  perhaps 
a  hundred  feet  by  thirty.  Such  wild  excitement 
as  prevailed  among  the  horses  when  the  dis- 
tribution of  oats  began,  such  plaintive  whinny- 
ing and  restless  stirring!  But  I  think  they  be- 
haved much  better  than  human  beings  would 
have  under  the  same  circumstances.  And  at 
last  each  was  being  fed  —  such  a  pathetically 
small  amount,  too,  hardly  more  than  a  handful 
apiece,  it  seemed.  In  his  eagerness,  the  Little 
Boy's  horse  breathed  in  some  oats,  and  for  a 
time  it  looked  as  though  he  would  cough  him- 
self to  death. 

The  wood-cutter's  wife  was  there.  We  were 
186 


OUT  TO  CIVILIZATION 

the  one  excitement  in  her  long  months  of  isola- 
tion. I  can  still  see  her  rather  pathetic  face  as 
she  showed  me  the  lace  she  was  making,  the 
one  hundred  and  one  ways  in  which  she  tried 
to  fill  her  lonely  hours. 

All  through  the  world  there  are  such  women, 
shut  away  from  their  kind,  staying  loyally 
with  the  man  they  have  chosen  through  days 
of  aching  isolation.  That  woman  had  children. 
She  could  not  take  them  into  the  wilderness 
with  her,  so  they  were  in  a  town,  and  she  was 
here  in  the  forest,  making  things  for  them  and 
fretting  about  them  and  longing  for  them. 
There  was  something  tragic  in  her  face  as  she 
watched  us  mount  to  go  on. 

We  were  to  reach  Marblemont  that  day  and 
there  to  leave  our  horses.  After  they  had  rested 
and  recovered,  Dan  Devore  was  to  take  them 
back  over  the  range  again,  while  we  went  on  to 
civilization  and  a  railroad. 

We  promised  the  wood-cutter  to  send  the  oats 
back  with  the  outfit ;  and  when  we  sent  them,  we 
sent  at  the  same  time  some  magazines  to  that 
lonely  wife  and  mother  on  the  Skagit. 

187 


TENTING  TO-NIGHT 

Late  in  the  afternoon,  we  emerged  from  the 
forest.  It  was  like  coming  from  a  darkened 
room  into  the  light.  One  moment  we  were  in 
the  aisles  of  that  great  green  cathedral,  the 
next  there  was  an  open  road  and  the  sunlight 
and  houses.  We  prodded  the  horses  with  our 
heels  and  raced  down  the  road.  Surprised  in- 
habitants came  out  and  stared.  We  waved  to 
them;  we  loved  them;  we  loved  houses  and 
dogs  and  cows  and  apple  trees.  But  most  of  all 
we  loved  level  places. 

We  were  in  time,  too,  for  the  railroad  strike 
had  not  yet  taken  place. 

As  Bob  got  off  his  horse,  he  sang  again 
that  little  ditty  with  which,  during  the  most 
strenuous  hours  of  the  trip,  we  had  become 
familiar:  — 

"Oh,  a  sailor's  life  is  bold  and  free, 
He  lives  upon  the  bright  blue  sea: 
He  has  to  work  like  h — ,  of  course, 
But  he  does  n't  have  to  ride  on  a  darned  old 
horse." 

THE  END 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U   .   S   .  A 


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